Reporting on Ukraine's border: a million refugees, a million tragic stories

Last Friday I heard the news that a friend and colleague, the journalist and author Ed Caesar, was in Poland on the border with Ukraine covering Russia’s devastating invasion. This was something of a surprise. I’ve known Ed for almost 20 years. Over time, we have worked together on various assignments, specifically some that took him into dangerous areas of international conflict.

Ed has always been intrepid. Where other journalists fear to tread and bear witness, Ed more often than not, would already be on the plane before I thought to call. A few years ago, however, he travelled to the Central African Republic for the publication I was working for to cover the chaos and atrocities going on inside the country; what he saw and reported on put him off war reporting for good. In short: he got too close to hell. Plus, he had a young family of his own to think about. So, when I heard he was in Ukraine I was, as I say, somewhat surprised.

So I called, not expecting him to pick up. He did. A good journalist always instinctively goes to where the story is, and Ed is one of the very best. I wanted to know what had changed his mind. I was also concerned. For a week we’d all seen the news reports rolling out of the country, hour by desperate hour. The below is a conversation we had just before he got on his flight back to London from Krakow last Friday around noon. He had been at the Ukraine border for about six days reporting for The New Yorker on the then half a million refugees flooding out of the country. 

Over the weekend we all heard and saw the terrible shelling of those trapped in the city of Mariupol; a second ceasefire having failed to hold. Today, Monday, Ed will be going back to continue his work out there.

Soho House: Ed, where are you? 

Ed Caesar: ‘I’m just about to get on a flight back to London. But I’ll be back [in Ukraine] next week. I got scrambled out here last Sunday. The fact is there’s a lot of journalists who are on the Polish border here, so it’s quite an interesting insight into how the big “news” networks work. I am not often in a place where there are lots of other journalists, because that’s not the kind of reporting I do. The camera crews are pretty cumbersome. It’s also somewhat jarring to see people having a light and a camera shoved in their faces on what is probably the worst day of their life. I only have a notepad; it makes things simpler.’

SH: Who are you out there with?

EC: ‘You know, the most incredible thing has been the person who’s helping me out here. It’s not a journalist. The person who’s helped me, my translator, my contact, is actually someone who crossed the border herself as a refugee – just last week, feeling the conflict. So, she got to Krakow and when I arrived, I put out a call asking if there were any Ukrainian speakers here who could come with me on really short notice. The drums went out and she said she’d do it. Incredible.’

SH: I understand we can’t say her name for safety, but what was your translator’s job in Ukraine previously? What has she left behind

EC: ‘I’m not sure what the company was, but it’s in digital. There’s a massive IT sector in Ukraine, or there was. And now many of them are here [in Poland]. I walked into my hotel room in Krakow and it was full of young, budding twenty-somethings with their laptops open, working. They are digital nomads. And they want to work, you know, despite it all.’

SH: What did you see at the border?

EC: ‘Lots and lots of people. I think it’s close to a million coming over into Poland. Lots of cars, people walking, of course, but also very crowded trains. But on the boarder in Poland, they are getting organised. When you arrive, buses will take you to a transit centre and they help you get to the next point in your journey. Everyone is trying to make plans. There is this incredible group of people in Poland just waiting. A lot are connected to organisations, but many of them are just private people who’ve seen the news, and they’ve come with signs saying, “I can take your family. I can help.” I’ve just filed my story on it, it will be out tomorrow [Saturday].’

SH: Private Polish citizens?

EC: ‘Yes, the Polish but not just the Polish. I met people who’ve driven for two days from Finland to come and wait, and help. I mean, just absolutely amazing. There’s this huge outpouring, and some are being meet with open arms. But there is more terror and tragedy to come, I fear. At the moment there’s this almost Old Testament division; women and children crossing into Poland while the men stay and fight. It’s very moving. People are saying goodbye to their fathers and brothers.’

SH: Is there any optimism, any hope at all from these millions fleeing their home?

EC: ‘I mean, I don’t know what the current situation is in the UK about how many refugees we are letting in, but no one that I’ve talked to wants a free ride; they all want to work. My feeling is that the best thing that you could do is offer a bit of stability; give them an opportunity to work. They don’t want to lounge around; they want carry on living their full lives despite having lost pretty much everything. But the scale of this is unlike anything I have ever felt or reported on. It feels like something momentous happening right before your eyes.’

SH: What happens next?

EC: ‘I don’t think there’s a real answer. I think the story about conflict is always the story about ordinary people who get affected, and that story is being told a million times over. A million people have left the country and there’s going be maybe triple, quadruple, quintuple that number by the time we’re done. People are terrified, but they’ve got a good country and they don’t want it to be destroyed. They want something to go back to, but they’re terrified about what that is.’

SH: What’s the difference in this conflict to others you’ve reported on?

EC: ‘The information exchange, and the speed of it. In conflicts over the past decade civilians have had phones, but now with smart phones, civilians know far more, far quicker than ever before. It can help you find the best routes through to the border, but also tell you of the incoming horror behind you, or where you might have left a relative. It’s a sort of awful clarity on everything. And the news focus highlights this also, of course. It’s a double-edged sword. It makes every moment feel far more highly charged.’

SH: How can you report objectively in the face of such horror?

EC: ‘The stories here, I mean, every single story that someone tells you will completely break your heart. It’s just unbelievable what people are going through. I was talking to someone yesterday and their little girl was almost exactly the same age as my little girl – same kind of blonde plaits, same kind of fondness for sparkly jumpers. And you just think this is so relatable because you’re looking at someone who could be you. It could be your wife, or your daughter. But I am here to tell their stories. That’s the job, and it’s an important one; to add value by witnessing what they are going through.’ 

SH: Stay safe, Ed. 
EC: ‘Thanks. Talk soon.’ 

 

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