In 2014, an irussian invasion forced her to leave her native crimea to take refuge in Kyiv. Now, Natalia Poliakova is fleeing the war again and, together with other Ukrainians, asks for help from United States from Mexico.
This 25-year-old graphic designer left Kiev as soon as Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24. After traveling 40 hours by train to the border, he continued budapest, Barcelona, Bogota, Mexico City and Tijuanaon the border with San Diego, California.
“The government of United States says: “we will help them”, but we have days on the street,” Poliakova told AFP on one side of the pedestrian border crossing and where there are a dozen Ukrainians and a handful of Russians and Belarusians.
The young woman, who wears a denim jacket and wears her long blonde hair loose, speaks fluent English and at times helps her compatriots translate their dealings with the press or with authorities.
His face with fine features looks tired and at times with a sad expression. “We are welcome (to United States) but they don’t let us through,” laments Poliakova, who two months ago had managed to Ukraine a well paid job.
In recent days, the AFP in Tijuana has confirmed the growing arrival of Ukrainians who request humanitarian refuge from US border agents, but the wait is long. Few families and adults accompanied by minors have passed slowly.
Poliakova seeks to reunite with an aunt who lives in the United States, but maintains that she intends to return to Ukraine. “We all want to go home and rebuild our country,” she says.
He has family in Crimea, which Moscow has annexed, and he assures that they did not give credit when he told them about the Russian invasion because the “propaganda” that is spread there, he maintains, “says something else.”
Another Ukrainian waiting at the door of the United States is Artem, a 23-year-old sailor who was surprised by the war in the Arctic aboard an Italian ship. He has two days in Tijuana waiting to be reunited with her sister in the United States.
“I come because my sister lives there. If I lived anywhere else, I would go there,” he says.
A 40-year-old Belarusian who identifies himself as Andrei assures that on February 7 he left his country with his wife, fleeing political persecution. He seeks to meet with his relatives in United States. “If I go back to Belarus, I go to prison.”
According to figures from the United States Customs and Border Protection service, the arrival of Ukrainians from Mexico has increased in recent months after a drastic drop in 2020 and 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19.
In January, according to the most recent statistics, 258 Ukrainians entered.