{"id":79339,"date":"2022-03-30T01:41:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T06:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=79339"},"modified":"2022-03-30T01:41:55","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T06:41:55","slug":"79339","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=79339","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

KS native Gwen Baumgardner reports on refugee crisis from Ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Foreign Policy Magazine, since the start of the war in Ukraine\u00a0more than 2.3 million refugees<\/a>\u00a0have crossed the border into Poland, moving the country from 101st globally in the number of refugees hosted in 2021 to second place a bare three weeks later.<\/p>\n

However, for one Kansas journalist, the refugee crisis spawned by the invasion is not just bare numbers on a page.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Gwen Baumgardner, Straight Arrow News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Former Kansas Journalist\u00a0Gwen Baumgardner,<\/a>\u00a0a reporter for\u00a0Straight Arrow News<\/i><\/a>,\u00a0was on the ground in Poland and western Ukraine and saw the human toll first hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust speaking to \u2026 especially the mothers, they have no idea if they will ever see their husbands again,\u201d Baumgardner said in an exclusive interview with\u00a0The\u00a0<\/em>Sentinel<\/i>. \u201cBut their main priority is to take their kids to safety, which means going into a country where they have no resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey cannot speak the language. They have no connections, but they are willing to do that for their family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baumgardner said the \u201cUkrainian spirit\u201d that is much-talked-about in the media is a real thing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cSo many people who have absolutely no military experience, are willing to stay and fight for their country \u2014 even though maybe they could get out of the country if they wanted to,\u201d she said. \u201cI really do think that when we hear about the \u2018Ukrainian spirit\u2019 that is absolutely there.\u201d<\/p>\n

One woman they met, Dasha, was waiting to travel to Poland.\u00a0 Her husband is in the military and stayed behind to fight.\u00a0 They traveled several days to get to western Ukraine. At one point, they had to hide under train station benches when air raid sirens went off because the shelters were full.<\/p>\n

Ending up on the other side of the world<\/b><\/h3>\n

Baumgardner, daughter of Kansas Senator\u00a0Molly Baumgardner<\/a>, and her reporting partner Shannon Longworth watched the run-up to the invasion and pressured their bosses to allow them to go to Ukraine and report.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a night owl up late at night,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd the first reports come through that it actually has happened and this process is started.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Baumgardner saw signs like this across western Ukraine. She\u2019s told it translates to \u201cThis is our land. We will not retreat.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite having plenty of work in the U.S., Baumgardner said covering the war from the states simply didn\u2019t seem like the best way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels difficult as a journalist covering things from afar,\u201d she said. \u201cSo myself and another journalist, her name is\u00a0Shannon Longworth,<\/a>\u00a0we went to our bosses and said, \u2018hey, it sounds a little crazy, but could we go to Ukraine?\u2019 and that was an immediate \u2018no.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Baumgardner said she and Longworth then suggested going to Russia to cover the protests that were already gaining steam and were turned down for that as well but then suggested Poland.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were like, \u2018what about Poland? Could we cover this refugee crisis because it is just starting now, but this is going to be something,\u2019 and they said, \u2018we\u2019ll think about it.\u2019 Then finally, a couple of weeks ago, they gave us the all-clear that \u2018yes, you could go to Poland.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Baumgardner said they were then able, after making contacts in Poland, to make their way into western Ukraine \u2014 away from the war zone \u2014 to report on the refugee crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people that I spoke with were Ukrainian, they were the ones that were staying in Ukraine,\u201d she said. \u201cThey felt like they had a specific role to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people that spoke with us \u2014 they felt obligated to speak to Western media and I was told by multiple people that \u2018I really don\u2019t feel comfortable sharing my story, but I know if I don\u2019t, people in other parts of the world will start to forget about us.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Aid needed in Ukraine and Poland<\/b><\/h3>\n

While Ukraine certainly needs military aid in the form of weapons and ammunition, Ukraine and Poland also need aid for the refugees.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor weeks the big rush was \u2018how do we send aid to Ukraine,’\u201d she said. Not realizing that these surrounding countries \u2014 Poland, especially \u2014 are taking in millions of people, and they do not have the infrastructure to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo now, I think there\u2019s been a little bit of a turn where it\u2019s \u2018yes, we will send aid to Ukraine. We\u2019ll send tactical aid, we\u2019ll send this but also, refugees need help as well.’\u201d<\/p>\n

While the UN and International Red Cross are certainly on the ground in eastern Poland and western Ukraine, they weren\u2019t there when the fighting began \u2014 and simply do not have the resources to be in every small community.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A high school that has been transformed into a shelter in Zamosc, Poland sees up to 2,000 refugees daily.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Consequently, Baumgardner said, the local residents have instead simply done the work themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the shelters along the border are grassroots efforts where it is the town or city, that has just come together and said, \u2018you know, the Red Cross hasn\u2019t come in, the UN hasn\u2019t come in, so we have to do this ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some aid is finding its way in, however, even as Baumgardner said the Polish people are opening their homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was appreciated, we were told, were some of the American organizations or volunteers that were coming over and they were bringing aid with them,\u201d she said. \u201cWhether it was diapers or food or toys or books for kids that was appreciated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were over there they said they really needed sleeping bags and yoga mats that people could use as bedding, because even if they do find housing. normally it is one room for an entire family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Longworth and Baumgardner met a man named Vitali at the Lviv train station, waiting with his wife and children for a train out of Ukraine.\u00a0 He said, \u201cMy whole life is in Kharkiv. My apartment, my car. Everything that I gained through the years is there. Now I\u2019m here with my kids and two suitcases. And that\u2019s my life now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baumgardner said she was inspired, not just by the Ukrainian people, but by the Polish people as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThousands of Polish people are just opening up their homes to complete strangers, where there is a total language barrier,\u201d she said. \u201cWhile we were there we met with a Polish family which lives in a small apartment. They opened up their home to a mother and daughter who were Ukrainian refugees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t speak Ukrainian, the Ukrainian family doesn\u2019t speak Polish, and yet, they still make it work. And they feel after a couple of weeks that they are now like this big family even though there are so many elements mixed in \u2014 the language barrier, the trauma, the unknown. And I just think it\u2019s so incredible the fact that families are opening up their home and not knowing when there\u2019s an ending.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KS native Gwen Baumgardner reports on refugee crisis from Ukraine According to Foreign Policy Magazine, since the start of the war in Ukraine\u00a0more than 2.3 million refugees\u00a0have crossed the border into Poland, moving the country from 101st globally in the number of refugees hosted in 2021 to second place a bare three weeks later. However, … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-more-things-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79340,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79339\/revisions\/79340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}