The war in Ukraine still goes on – about 3 million people (1.4 million of them are children) have already left their home country, while the caravans of people on the border with Poland and Ukraine’s other neighbouring states are growing every day.
What is happening in Ukraine is an invasion by Russia, in violation of any notion of international law, an imperialist intervention, such as those carried out by NATO or other major powers in recent years all around the world, resulting in the loss of human lives, the destruction of entire countries, the creation of huge waves of refugee populations.
Ukrainians are currently experiencing the same bitter fate as millions of others, for so many years now, struggling to save their lives and the lives of their children.
The situation we are facing leaves no place for apathy: we need, first of all, a strong anti-war movement, broad, dynamic and united, in order to end the war, a movement for peace similar to those of the 1970s, 1980s and beyond, which had played a decisive role. We also need to make a joint effort to fight the causes leading to wars.
The Party of the European Left (EL) mobilises its forces in every EU Member State, in cooperation with social and grassroots organisations in the field, to respond to the refugees’ basic needs.
At the same time, the EL urges the governments of the EU countries to revoke the unacceptable Migration Pact and acknowledge the necessity of creating legal and safe passageways as well as a serious relocation plan for all refugees.
The Party of the European Left strongly condemns the attempted discrimination between people uprooted by the horrors of war, the policies of criminalising rescue at sea, the failure to deal with dozens of allegations of illegal deportations of refugees, the closed border among the EU Member States, the militarisation of Europe, directed against desperate human beings.
The application of international law can in no case be selective, neither can sensitivity and humanity. The ongoing tragedy of the Ukrainian people makes it clear – as long as geopolitical games demolish any chance of peaceful coexistence, anybody can end up as refugee.
We demand and urgently need respect and humanitarian acts for all the people who risk their lives and who are forced to flee.
Originally published on the website of the Party of The European Left.