‘I left everything’: Tens of thousands of Ukrainians seek safety in neighbouring Poland

When, at the end of January, Poland's deputy interior minister, Maciej WÄ…sik, said his country had "to be prepared for a wave of up to a million people" in the event of a major Russian invasion of Ukraine, many thought he was exaggerating. Just five days after the military attack ordered by Putin, over 280,000 Ukrainians have entered Poland. At this rate, Warsaw could be facing Europe's largest wave of refugees since the second world war.

The village of Medyka in south-eastern Poland is the main border crossing with Ukraine. Thousands of refugees have crossed the border by bus, car and on foot. They are mostly women and children. After Kyiv decreed a full military mobilisation, Ukrainian men aged 18-60 are forbidden to leave the country.

"I came here with my sisters, my mother and my grandmother," Arina, 21, from Vinnitsya, told the Guardian. "My father stayed in Ukraine and we think about him all the time. It was a difficult journey to reach Poland and we don't know what the future holds. But we are not alone. We are holdings hands with each other.''

Arina says that until a few weeks ago, the possibility of finding herself in a war was as distant as in any other European country. Today, she and tens of thousands of fellow Ukrainians have been forced to leave their homes, their loved ones, their cities and their country, which is at risk of belonging to someone else soon.

"I left everything in Ukraine," says Inna, 49, from Kharkiv, the country's second largest city where Ukrainian forces have regained control after days of fighting. "My husband is fighting against the Russians. I have just arrived here, completely alone, with my three daughters. I do not know where to go."

More than half a million people have fled Ukraine in the last four days, Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) said on Monday. On Sunday, over 45,000 people arrived in Poland in just 15 hours. According to the UN, up to 5 million people could flee abroad if the war continues, surpassing the 1.3 million asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa fleeing poverty and wars in 2015, which, by now, is Europe's largest wave of refugees since the second world war.

The mass exodus is causing severe queues at the Poland-Ukraine border, with rows of people and cars reaching 14 km long and waiting times of 40 hours, according to a UNHCR spokesperson, Chris Melzer.