How Canada is failing Ukraine’s most desperate

Just as it was for many in Ukraine, the Russian invasion at first seemed unreal to Senam, a man originally from Ghana who had been living in Kyiv for a decade with his wife and daughter.

“When the war started, it was like a dream,” Senam said. “We woke up one day and heard huge explosions.”

After four weeks of fighting, he paid the equivalent of $1,790 for private taxis to drive his family from Ukraine’s capital to safety in Poland. It was all the money he had.

But Senam, 39, had a dream of another life — in Canada. He had been recently admitted to study business administration at Nova Scotia Community College in Truro.

In an interview in Krakow, Poland, Senam said he was sent an admissions letter, and then made an appointment at the Canadian embassy to submit his biometrics to allow him to travel to Canada. “And since then,” he said, “I’ve never heard back.”

His story of frustration in trying to reach Canada is far too common. After 12 weeks of war, the Canadian government has yet to offer adequate travel or living assistance to refugees from Ukraine — leaving thousands of desperate individuals to fend for themselves.

The 30,000 Ukrainians who have successfully applied to reside in Canada since the war began have done so through the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel.

Under CUAET, Ukrainians are free to self-finance their travel to Canada, a luxury few can afford in Europe’s poorest country. Once they arrive, they are expected to immediately find work — hardly a privilege for those enduring the immediate after-effects of war.

After crossing into Poland, Senam and his family travelled by bus to the outskirts of Krakow, where they have been living out of a hotel room they cannot afford.

It’s been especially hard on Senam’s daughter. “Here we’re close to the airport, so when she hears a train or a plane passing she goes, ‘Do we need to hide, do we need to hide?’ … It’s going to have a very big scar on my memory,” he said. “Mentally, I think I’m broken.”

The next day, I travelled to Warsaw, where I met Nona, 68, who fled Kyiv in March with her daughter Masha, 45, and has since been taken in by a Polish family.

Although Nona originally planned to move in with her son, who lives in Ontario, she has since decided to remain in Poland for now. Because Ottawa will only provide her with a work visa, requiring her to pay her own way, Nona is financially incapable of resettling in Canada.

“Canada is not accepting us as refugees. … If we go to Canada, we’ll need medical insurance which can’t be paid by my son,” Nona said. “I’m not very young, and Masha has certain medical conditions too.”

Remaining in Kyiv, however, wasn’t an option.

“When we were in Kyiv, sirens were going and there were shootings,” Nona told me. “We were hiding in a bathtub, because it was the safest place that my son found on Google. Because of these shootings, and travelling, and being exhausted … Masha had a mental breakdown.”

In the absence of a sustainable residence abroad, Nona hopes to return to Kyiv with Masha. “I don’t want to stay in Poland,” she tells me.

“When they get rid of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, I will go home.”

The end of the war, though, is not in sight. Meanwhile, the scattered victims of Putin’s war are left to improvise temporary solutions.

As I was interviewing Senam, he answered a phone call from a man he met the day prior on WhatsApp. It was an invitation for his family to spend one month in the stranger’s home — an offer he accepted without hesitation.

We were momentarily speechless, both swamped with emotion, though we had only just met. He had been forced to check out of his hotel that day, and so was evading homelessness by the narrowest of margins.

As Ukraine fights for its future, its people are fighting for their own. Any humanitarian response to this war must consider the most vulnerable — the individuals whose lives have been upended by unimaginable loss, and whose options are limited by policies tailored for those better off.