Ukrainians are looking for relatives in Poland: first fled, then missing

When fleeing, many Ukrainians lost sight of their family members. Now the search begins: Some try to make calls online, others with the help of the police. The Red Cross expects many missing.

Thousands of ads on the Internet and hundreds of calls to the police: refugees from Ukraine are looking for their relatives. They often lost their families at a train station or border crossing while fleeing the war zone. “Most are adults,” says Inspector Mariusz Ciarka, spokesman for the Polish police. “They split up at the border crossings, on the trains and resettlement sites and chose a specific destination for their flight. Later their plans change. They end up somewhere else – and now they want to find their families. But there are also lost children.”

As in the case of the boy Sascha: On March 10, four-year-old Aleksander S., called Sascha, and his grandmother Zoya had to flee from the village of Sukholuchchya on the Dnieper north of Kyiv. According to the information, they decided to cross the river by boat accompanied by some other people. The boat capsized while trying to escape – and was later discovered with the grandmother’s body.

After the accident, there was initially no trace of Sascha. Investigators searched for him for weeks. It has been known since April 5: the body of the little boy was found.

The police and the Red Cross are helping with the search

It is often Polish helpers or hosts who first try to find the separated families. Łukasz helps privately in the search for the daughter of a refugee from Ukraine. The girl named Liana attended a boarding school in Kyiv. On the run, the mother lost her phone – and with it contact with her daughter. “We put a lot of effort into finding Liana,” says Łukasz in a radio interview. “The first steps are taken on the Internet. Often the missing people report themselves,” he emphasizes.

Sascha’s mother also published photos of the boy on social media in the hope that they would help find the toddler. However, the Polish Red Cross warns: “Let’s be careful what we publish online,” says Katarzyna Kubicius from the aid organization’s information and search office. “One should not carelessly post photos of children on social media. This could put the child who is looking for his mother at risk of abuse.”

It’s not just children who are at risk: women are also often targeted by human traffickers. In a state of shock, confused, without family and friends, fleeing in a foreign country, they become easy targets. In order to protect and warn them, the Polish police are already distributing leaflets at the border with information and tips on what to look out for to protect themselves.

Start of a huge search wave in Poland?

Ukrainians who need help locating their loved ones should first seek help from the police. “If that fails, we can also help with the search,” says Kubicius from the Red Cross. “We can search in Poland, but also in other countries.” Because for some fleeing Ukrainians, Poland is just a transit country: “Sometimes part of the family is in Poland and some in other countries. We try to help everyone so that everyone is with their families,” she assures.

In order for the Polish Red Cross to assist in the search for a missing person, a family member must complete a formal application accompanied by a Polish Red Cross representative. By the end of March, 30 questions about missing persons and six search requests had been sent to the PRK. Katarzyna Kubicius fears that this is just the beginning of a huge search wave: “If five million people flee, thousands will be missing and also wanted,” she says. The Polish Red Cross estimates that even after the end of the war around two percent of all Ukrainian children are wanted.

Not all searches will have a happy ending – as in the case of Sascha. But many relatives of missing persons never give up hope: people still missing from the Second World War are still being searched for – almost 80 years after the end of the war.