リゾートホテルが一転、ウクライナ人母子の避難場所に　ブルガリア

【ＡＦＰ＝時事】ウクライナの人々にとって黒海に面するブルガリアのキャンプ場は、夏の休暇で訪れる場所だった。しかし今は母子数百人が、避難場所を求めてやって来ている。（写真は難民センターとして使われているブルガリア・キテンのサマーキャンプ施設で、大型ポスターの前に立っているウクライナから避難してきた若者）
　小さなリゾートタウン、キテンでは冬の間、一軒のホテルを除いて何もかもが閉まっている。
　ロシアのウクライナ侵攻が起きたとき、ホテルオーナーのコスタディン・ミレフさん（３２）は当然のように、例年より早くホテルを開けて避難所を提供した。
　ウクライナ人の旅行業者、アレクサンドル・リシャンスキーさんの力添えで、キテンとの間を１日１往復以上走るバス輸送が始まった。戦禍で行き場を失った子どもたち、そしてその母親や祖母、おばなど女性たちを「第二の故郷」と呼ばれるこの地に運んでいる。これまでにすでに４００人以上を受け入れた。
　「ここは私たちを受け入れ、保護し、助けてくれると分かっている唯一の外国です」とユリヤ・モルチャノワさん（３４）は語る。
　「家を出るときは、何も持ってくることができませんでした。でも、ここには何でもあります」。ユリヤさんは見知らぬ人から寄付されたピンク色のセーターを見せた。
　ドニプロに住んでいたガリナ・ヤロザさん（６５）は「一番大事なことは、子どもたちが無事なこと、サイレンを聞いたり戦争を目撃したりしないで済むことです」と語った。
　同じくドニプロ出身のアレクサンドラ・グリシナさん（３５）のように、自分の子どもだけでなく、頼まれてよその子どもも連れてきた母親もいる。
　だがミレフさんは政府の援助がすぐに来ることを望んでいる。ウクライナ人１０００人の受け入れを準備しているのだ。
　ブルガリア国境警備隊によると、先月２４日にロシアがウクライナ侵攻を開始して以降、越境してブルガリアへ逃れたウクライナ人は９万４５００人を超え、うち約５万人が今もブルガリア国内にとどまっている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/03/29-09:51）

They've been here before as holidaymakers. Now they're back as refugees -- hundreds of Ukrainian children and their mothers, sheltering in a Bulgarian Black Sea summer camp.
Everything has been shut for the winter in the tiny resort of Kiten and there's hardly a soul in the streets under the sunny but chilly March sky.
One hotel however hums with activity -- toddlers running around, women chatting in the corridors, distributing towels and snacks or sitting glued to the news on their phones.
Hotel owner Kostadin Milev, 32, has been welcoming Ukrainian holidaymakers every summer for the past 10 years. When Russia invaded its neighbour, it was only natural for Milev to open up earlier than usual to offer them shelter.
Thanks to his Ukrainian tour operator, Aleksander Lishanski, buses started running to and from Ukraine at least once a day to fetch distressed children, mothers, grandmothers and aunts and bring them to the place they now call our home from home.
Over 400 people have been taken in so far.
They arrived to find the benches around an outdoor stage painted in the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. On the pavement outside, children have written Slava Ukraini (Glory to Ukraine).
This was the only place abroad that we knew would accept us, shelter us and help us, Yuliya Molchanova, 43, tells AFP. She hugs her 12-year-old daughter Nastya, who has been here five times before.
When their northeastern city of Kharkiv was shelled by Russian forces, they spent five days in an underground shelter before making it to Kiten a week ago.
We couldn't take anything when we left. Now we have everything, Yuliya smiles, showing off a pink sweater donated by a stranger.
She reads out a poem she wrote thanking Bulgaria for sharing its peaceful skies, warmth and love, bread and water.
Bulgaria has long been a popular destination for both tourists and seasonal workers from Ukraine. Some 470,000 of them visited in 2021.
- 'Nowhere to return to' -
While Yuliya insists they will of course go back when there's peace, 28-year-old mother-of-two Oksana Kuskova is not so sure.
Our home was bombed and sadly we won't have anywhere to return to, she says, watching her toddler play with a colourful toy pushchair.
Oksana accompanied Ukrainian children here as choreographer for four years in a row and feels reassured to stay with other Ukrainians.
It's hard and sad but thank goodness that we're safe. Here, together, we support each other, she says.
She recalls how her little girl intially refused to leave their hotel room and still ducks when planes fly overhead.
Many of the children have been to the resort before and the hope is that they will find the familiarity comforting.
The most important thing is that the children are alright, that they don't hear the sirens and witness war, sobs Dnipro resident Galina Yaloza, 65.
She arrived at the centre with two other female relatives and her four grandchildren, including two babies.
Some mothers, like 35-year-old Alexandra Grishina, also from Dnipro, have brought along not only their own children but also others they were asked to take to safety.
They try to recreate some sort of normal routine to reassure the youngsters.
While older children attend online classes on their laptops, some of the smaller ones huddle around a woman reading aloud and dozens of others play.
So far the hotel has funded the relief effort on its own with the help of donations.
But Milev says he hopes to get government help soon -- he is preparing to host as many as 1,000 Ukrainians and is bracing for a brutal electricity bill.
More than 94,500 Ukrainians have crossed the border into Bulgaria since the Russian invasion began on February 24 and 50,000 have remained in the country, border police data show.
Half of them have been accommodated by ordinary Bulgarians or through voluntary initiatives like Milev's.
The government was slow to open reception centres and is only this week starting to accept applications for temporary refugee status.
One of the desks in the manager's office is piled high with documents to allow everyone staying at the hotel to apply, so the adults can find work and the children can attend kindergarten and school.