News Stories

Dumitru travelled from Bender in Moldova’s transnistrian region, to participate in this year’s Big Hearts Marathon in Chisinau. As a 29-year-old wheelchair user, it was his second year competing in the race.  ‘  Together with a friend, Dumitru had travelled to Chisinau a couple of days before the event, to test the racing wheelchairs at the NGO People with Disabilities of the Republic of Moldova, which provided the special equipment free of charge. Dumitru was very enthusiastic about the Marathon. “I was competing in this for the second time. I came from Bender just for the race”...

Maria* has been in Nisporeni for more than a year. She comes from the Donetsk region, a territory under military control of the Russian Federation since 2014. She chose to come to the Republic of Moldova because her son and granddaughter were here. The host country welcomed Maria’s family. “We are comfortable in Moldova, but obviously we want to be home,” Maria says. Maria says she delayed leaving as much as possible because it was complicated for her to make the decision to go into the unknown.   “I endured as much as I could, but when the Russian invasion...

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Moldova joined forces with the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation and the non-governmental organization Low Vision to launch two temporary eye clinics this summer. The clinics offered free ophthalmological services for refugees and Moldovans during five days in Chisinau and Ungheni. Veronica, a 69-year-old refugee from Ukraine, was happy to get an eye exam and two pairs of new glasses, free of charge.  “I appreciate this act of kindness. When you need to save money, the cost of services like these become...

Elena* still remembers the shelling that forced her to shelter in her Mykolaiv basement for months before she fled to the Republic of Moldova in April of last year. Now she lives with her husband in a small house in Edinet, where they have both found work.  They were granted Temporary Protection status shortly after the programme was announced in March of this year. “My biggest dream is peace. I dream of it every night,” she says. Temporary Protection Status is a measure adopted by the Government of Moldova to protect and assist refugees from Ukraine and their families. It allows...

Anatoli and his family put off leaving their home in Mykolaiv for as long as they could. “We hoped the war would be over soon and we wouldn’t have to leave,” he says. “We even stopped flinching at the sound of shelling, until one evening we heard shrapnel hit our neighbors’ roofs – we packed up our emergency bags that same night.” Many of Anatoli’s acquaintances left Ukraine for countries around Europe.   “We fled the rockets, and we found peace here. We chose Moldova because it’s the closest country, both geographically and spiritually,” he explains. In spite...

When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine suddenly turned life upside-down for Mila, she had already been facing enormous challenges for several months.” I fought cancer, then the real war started,” she says. „I arrived in Moldova very thin, with short-short hair. My husband was always there for me.” Though it has been nine months since Mila and her husband arrived in a refugee accommodation centre in the small village of Greblești in the Republic of Moldova, she still ruminates on her decision to leave, and it wasn’t an easy decision. “For about a month, every day we...