A year’s passed since Russia launched its initial attack against Kyiv, and the brutal war has killed 8,000 civilians, injured another 13,000 and displaced millions of refugees. So many of them have found safe harbor here in New Jersey. But as the war drags on, they’re beginning to realize it won’t end anytime soon. “There’s a different reality set in with these people. They start to understand — they’re never gonna go back to the places that they used to live,” says Yuriy Boychenko.
He runs a Jersey-based nonprofit that’s shipped 62 million meals to refugees in and outside of Ukraine. He says, people who fled the conflict “… had homes, they had jobs, they had businesses. And now they have nothing…”
Here in New Jersey, advocates are preparing to help comfort refugees who settled here to wait out the war in safety but must now confront a stark reality. “The uncertainty of how long these people will be here is really the new struggle. We’re gonna deal with this next year.”
There are also questions “about employment, education, more medium and long-term goals that people have,” said Courtney Madsen with Church World Services. “That also raises another issue,” Madsen continued, “Most refugees have permission to stay in the U.S. for two years. But how do you plan your life?”
Learn more about Hope for Ukraine.
