Dozens of people had been waiting for hours outside the San José de Sotrondio school when finally, after nine twenty at night, the convoy with 47 Ukrainian refugees arrived at the facilities. Applause and shouts of support for some people who arrived exhausted after hours and hours of travel. “Many thanks to Spain,” said Victoria Sukhotskiy as soon as she got off the bus.
On Wednesday at two in the morning the bus had left the border between Poland and Ukraine. The long journey to Spain, managed by the NGO Expoaccion, began. In Asturias there are already 54 sheltered refugees, assured the president of the NGO, Jorge González. These 47 arrived today, he said, and “we are waiting for 50 more to arrive.” All of them have some relationship with Asturias.
From early in the afternoon, the facilities of the old San José de Sotrondio school were ready to receive the 47 Ukrainian refugees. The activity was frenetic, as it had been the last days in what was an educational center until July 2019. Every few minutes a neighbor arrived with food, clothing or hygiene items. As soon as you entered the building, drawings by students from the Rey Aurelio and El Bosquín schools welcomed you. With the flags of Spain, Asturias and Ukraine along with doves of peace and messages in the language of the newcomers. In the old school, signs in Spanish and Ukrainian, with blue and yellow letters, marked the way. Those that were classrooms are used to gather perfectly placed the enormous material donated in recent days. “We are overwhelmed, material has arrived from many places,” said Covadonga Fernández, former director of the school, and one of the coordinators of the device. In fact, they had to notify ahead of time that the deadline to take the items was closed. On the ground floor, two dining rooms were prepared very close to the kitchen and the pantry. Upstairs, the bedrooms, all prepared with care to accommodate the 47 people who had to leave their homes and their belongings to escape the war of the Russian invasion.
In the afternoon, the Minister of the Presidency Rita Camblor and the President of the Principality, Adrián Barbón, who returned to what was his school, passed by the old educational center. Camblor highlighted the “speed of the people of San Martín and Cuenca. In record time what has been collected in this school is tremendous”. He indicated that “we can feel proud of the Asturian solidarity”, and pointed out that “in the next few days we will be able to have some more places and I would venture to say that we could reach 600, but it depends on the validation that the Ministry has to do”.