MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — More than 2 million people have already fled Ukraine as the war with Russia pushes into its second week.
Many of them are children who left home with next to nothing, heading for places they’ve never been before.
Thousands of miles away, students at Mercy High School in Middletown are trying to make those children's experiences just a little bit easier.
The students at Mercy are stepping up in a big way, the best way they know how.
Two weeks since the war in Ukraine began, Mercy students were jumping into action, filling nearly 500 gift boxes with toys and other essentials to go on out to children fleeing Ukraine with their families. Boxes are packed with messages written in Ukrainian, sending love and gifts from thousands of miles away to make a difference.
"We just want to give them all the support we can right now and just let them know that everything’s gonna be okay in the end, and we just want them to have all of our love," said Hannah Veenhuis, a Mercy High School sophomore.
"When horrible things are happening in the world there are ways connect and help and we can always make the world a better place it aligns with what we are teaching these students that’s what we want them to do when they graduate from Mercy and so this is just another example of how the students these students come together to make the world a better place," said Alissa DeJonge, Mercy High School president.
More than 1 million children have fled Ukraine in the less than two weeks since Russia first invaded the country, something UNICEF spokesperson James Elder called “a dark historical first.”
That means that children represent around half of the more than 2 million people that have fled the war, an exodus that the U.N. refugee agency has called the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
Most of those fleeing the war have entered countries on Ukraine's western border, like Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova. The majority have gone into Poland, where 1.33 million refugees have crossed according to the Polish Border Guard agency.
Keith McGilvery is an anchor and reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at kmcgilvery@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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