Many Belgians have opened their doors to Ukrainian refugees who had to flee their country to escape death. If this gesture is honorable, a year later, certain situations are still quite precarious. And sometimes entire families have not yet found accommodation. So they stay with the locals.
And these situations can be difficult on a daily basis. This is the case of Aurore, from Couillet, who has been welcoming refugees since April 1, 2022. She confides.
“I want to recover a life, it is morally heavy”. “I think that my house was not conducive to shared accommodation. It was a temporary reception and the temporary has become almost definitive. It is not possible. I have a bathroom, a toilet. In the morning, getting ready is complicated. The bedrooms are separated by a curtain. In terms of intimacy, we have known better, ”she told RTL Info.
The language barrier is another challenge that Aurore has to overcome, “we feel abandoned by the authorities who had made such great propaganda to welcome us. But there was never any return behind. No aid to help us relocate these people,” she testifies.
Faced with such situations, the municipalities had to help each other to find housing and space to accommodate these families. Many Belgians are still living in “roommates” a year after the start of the war.