The United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, will open an office in Kraków in response to the influx of refugees from Ukraine. Its head, Filippo Grandi, has promised to help the Polish city “in every possible way”, including providing financial support.
During a visit to Kraków this week, Grandi noted that the city has welcomed 150,000 refugees from Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. That has caused its population to grow almost 20% in the space of a month. Grandi thanked Kraków for its “extraordinary generosity”.
Krakow is a city of 800,000 people. It has welcomed 150,000 refugees from Ukraine.
I expressed to Mayor Majchrowski our respect for his city’s extraordinary generosity.
We will keep helping Krakow in every possible way and to advocate for more international support for Poland. pic.twitter.com/d8ypknRrAi
— Filippo Grandi (@FilippoGrandi) March 29, 2022
Yesterday, city authorities announced that the UNHCR plans to open an office in Kraków and also to provide financial support for refugees to the amount of €300 per person.
Grandi, speaking after a meeting with Mayor Jacek Majchrowski, confirmed that his organisation would launch a “cash programme for the most vulnerable refugees…especially women, small children and elderly people”.
The vast majority of the roughly 2.4 million refugees to have arrived in Poland belong to those categories, given that many Ukrainian men are serving in the defence of their country, whose government has banned those aged 18-60 from leaving. It is estimated that around half of those fleeing are children.
Grandi pledged that his organisation would help not only financially, but also with organisational issues and by advocating on behalf of Kraków and Poland with other international institutions and donors.
“You will not be left alone,” he pledged. “The international community is here, through me, to say we will also participate and contribute because it is not fair that the whole burden of this hospitality is left only to the citizens of Kraków.”
Like municipalities around Poland, Kraków has rallied to support Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. Local authorities and civil society groups have provided accommodation, food and a range of other support to those fleeing the war, as well as sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine itself.
A large “shop” offering free clothes for refugees from Ukraine has opened in a disused Kraków shopping mall, which has itself also been turned into a temporary shelter for hundreds of refugees https://t.co/bRr6DNyGm5
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) March 14, 2022
Many Cracovians have also been hosting refugees from Ukraine in their own homes, while a number of businesses and religious organisations have provided accommodation. The city’s Dominican monastery has hosted over 130 refugees since the start of the war.
“We already had places in the monastery, because they functioned as guest rooms or pastoral rooms. But we [also] started converting offices into apartments,” deacon Andrzej Mońka told Gazeta Wyborcza. “We’ve had Muslim families, non-believers [staying with us]. Everyone has their own story.”
Kraków’s schools and preschools have enrolled over 5,000 new children from Ukraine, while the city is also offering free use of public transport for refugees.
Last week, Hollywood actor Sean Penn signed an agreement with Kraków for the NGO that he founded, CORE, to support the city financially and organisationally in dealing with the influx of refugees.
Main image credit: Jakub Wlodek / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
