Ukrainians wait in a miles-long jam full of trucks, buses and cars to cross to the border at Medyka, Poland.
Anna Kobernyk and her friends have been waiting in a van for six hours, parked in a line of vehicles almost 10 miles long."We were waiting all night here and all of us are really tired," she says. After almost three months since the war began, families are returning through the Poland-Ukraine border in Medyka. And the tears these days are often from happy reunions. Parents like Oksana Chikh hug their kids at this border crossing for the first time in months.
Her sons are 6, 9, and 11. The family stands in a long line of pedestrians waiting to enter Ukraine. The 9-year-old says he can't wait to get back home to Ukraine and play with the cat he hasn't seen since February. His mother's hands keep touching the boys' shoulders as she talks.Yuri Vasylevych, 71, waits with his saxophone at the Poland-Ukraine border to cross to the Ukrainian side.
Violetta Naboka and her 14-year-old daughter have spent the last two months living with Polish strangers who, she says, treated them like family."These people really love Ukraine," she says."I'm very happy because I really want to [return] to my house, to my husband, to my mother, to my dog Brooklyn."On the vehicle path of the border, double-decker buses idle bumper to bumper, waiting for the border guard to signal when it's their turn to cross the border.