At Romania hotel, ballroom welcomes refugees fleeing Ukraine
ABC News
A four-star hotel in Romania has turned its lavish ballroom into a makeshift refugee shelter for the thousands crossing the borders from neighboring Ukraine each day
SUCEAVA, Romania -- As Olga Okhrimenko walked into a bustling ballroom-turned-refugee shelter at a four-star Romanian hotel, her corgi, Knolly, strained at the leash anxiously seeking the warmth inside. It had taken them three days to flee Ukraine by car, bus and taxi in the bitter cold.
The 34-year-old Ukrainian marketing manager could hardly contain her emotions, and a simple “are you OK?” filled her eyes with tears she thought she no longer had.
The first refugees began arriving more than a week ago at the Mandachi Hotel and Spa in Suceava in Romania, where the owner decided to make the lavish, 850-square-meter ballroom available to them. Since then, more than 2,000 people and 100 pets have taken shelter here, with row upon row of numbered mattresses under an incongruous glittering disco ball.
They are part of the swiftest refugee exodus so far this century, in which more than 1.7 million people have fled Ukraine in just 10 days, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. Since the war started on Feb. 24, more than 227,000 Ukrainians have crossed into neighboring Romania, according to local authorities.
