Although they fled from the war itself
Non-Ukrainian refugees are not welcome in Western countries
Ukrainian refugees are warmly welcome in Western European countries.
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Grandi noted "the ugly fact that some black and brown people fleeing Ukraine were not treated the same as Ukrainians."
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Sami Mahdi expects about 200 thousand refugees to arrive in Belgium.
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Although it was an uncharacteristically cold spring day in Brussels, Gazan youth Jihad Kawar, 32, was unfazed by the freezing temperature.
“It was much colder on the border between Ukraine and Poland,” said Kuar, explaining his unease. Kuar spent three nights outdoors in temperatures of minus 17 degrees during his 80-kilometre walk.
"I had to burn my other jacket, my clothes, and three pairs of my shoes to stay warm," he added through an interpreter.
I saw three children who died from the cold.”
Kawar has experienced the hardships of asylum twice, the first was in 2017, when he fled the Gaza Strip, where he worked as a nurse.
He now lives in Ukraine, which he considered his paradise, but when the war broke out, he had to flee again.
And he tried to escape to Brussels, “the capital of the European Union.” Didn’t Europe declare that all refugees from Ukraine were welcome?
If Kuar had obtained Ukrainian citizenship, the European declaration would have applied to him.
There is a registration center for Ukrainian nationals near the Atomium in Brussels, where Ukrainians can book appointments online, are given food, a mobile phone, and housing easily, while families are arranged to welcome refugees in their homes.
Belgium expects about 200,000 refugees to arrive in the country, according to the Minister of State for Asylum, Sami Mahdi.
So far, about 35,000 Ukrainian refugees have been registered here.
Dirty Asylum Office
But since Kauar holds a Palestinian travel document, the Belgian authorities send him to a filthy asylum office, where asylum-seekers from all over the world sleep in harsh conditions, while asylum officials are very rude to all refugees.
Under EU laws, temporary protection that grants Ukrainian citizens housing, education and work permits for up to three years is extremely difficult for non-Ukrainians fleeing the same war in Ukraine.
This is a side of Europe that I remember from 2015, when I was covering the beginning of the refugee “crises,” where misery, terror, and barbed wire.
Some countries, such as Denmark, published advertisements in Middle Eastern newspapers, aimed at deterring refugees from coming there, and later passed laws to confiscate money and jewelry owned by asylum seekers.
And then there were a million refugees in a whole year.
Now, more than a month after the start of the war in Ukraine, some three million Ukrainian refugees have been welcomed into the European Union.
Of course, this generosity can extend to those who do not hold Ukrainian citizenship, the numbers of these are not large.
According to the UNHCR, there were 5,000 registered refugees in Ukraine.
During the weeks following his arrival in Belgium, Kawar was able to find temporary accommodation, with Nigerian and Jordanian refugees.
Frustrated by the double standards he faces, he wishes he had stayed in Poland, or perhaps had gone to Sweden with his friend, who had fled with him from the city of Sumy in eastern Ukraine, which was heavily bombed at the start of the war.
Wake up to the sounds of rockets
Kuwar remembers waking up from sleep on February 24 to the sound of missiles, a voice he knows well in Gaza. Kuwar said, “I knew that the war had begun, and I had to leave the country.” With two bags on the back and a third with which he put his clothes, he left his town towards Odessa, with his friend who owned a car.
It turns out that Kwar and his friend made the right choice, and Sumy soon came under siege.
"I never thought that the war would come to Ukraine so quickly, I thought that the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, was only aiming to show the threat," said Kuar. To transport them to the city of Lviv.
The man dropped them off 80 kilometers from the border with Poland and they had to walk in the freezing cold.
“The buses that took fleeing people to the border were for Ukrainians, or mixed families (Ukrainian with a second nationality) and we were not allowed to use these buses,” says Kuar. During this trip to the border, his friend fainted from exhaustion.
In Poland the Palestinian embassy had arranged accommodation in Warsaw, where Kawar spent three nights with his friend before his friend went to Sweden, while he went to Belgium.
The plight of non-Ukrainian refugees was highlighted by the head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.
Last month he welcomed the support everyone had shown to Ukrainians, but noted "the ugly fact that some black and brown people fleeing Ukraine have not been treated the same as Ukrainians." A few days later Grandi said: "There are constant reports of treatment unequal or discriminatory” to non-Ukrainians fleeing war.
"I thought it would be better to go to Belgium than to stay in Poland, but now I regret that I applied for asylum here in this country," says Kouar in Brussels.
Valentina Bobad is a reporter for the European Express newspaper.
• Kawar experienced the hardships of asylum twice, the first was in 2017, when he fled the Gaza Strip, where he worked as a nurse. He now lives in Ukraine, which he considered his paradise, but when the war broke out, he had to flee again.
• Under EU laws, temporary protection that grants Ukrainian citizens housing, education, and work permits for a period of up to three years is extremely difficult for non-Ukrainians fleeing the same war in Ukraine.
• During the weeks following Kawar's arrival in Belgium, he was able to find temporary accommodation, with Nigerian and Jordanian refugees. Frustrated by the double standards he faces, he wishes he had stayed in Poland, or perhaps had gone to Sweden with his friend who ran away with him from Sumy.
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