Ukrainian Refugee Crisis

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/04/2022 (1606 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Poland welcomes Ukrainian refugees, but its handling of humanitarian crises is rarely flawless

People with suitcases and bags on the walkway to the border crossing at Medyka on April 6. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press files)

Posted:

KRAKOW, Poland — When I first arrived in Poland a little more than three weeks ago, I began taking pictures of anything I saw on the streets that pledged solidarity for Ukraine. I gave up on this project, mostly, after my collection swelled to over 100 images taken in just one city and only a couple of days. A rain of pictures became a river, then a flood, then an ocean.

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From Odesa, by way of Pinawa, with love

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Alexander Leontiev poses for a portrait with his car, which he has decorated with Canadian flags, in Wrzesnia on Tuesday, April 12, 2022. For Melissa story. Winnipeg Free Press 2022.

Posted:

WRZEŚNIA, Poland — The horses watch with cursory interest as three-year-old Timur Mykholevskiy tries to scramble over the lower planks of a fence that leads away from the pen. It’s a valiant effort, but the boy’s legs are too short to quite carry him over, so he wriggles and grunts and finally stretches his hand towards two visiting reporters.

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Winnipeg-born Michael Rubenfeld helping to keep Ukraine’s broken hearts beating through art

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Michael Rubenfeld shows one of his newest art projects, which highlights the anti-Semitic nature of traditional “lucky Jew” paintings, at the FestivALT office in Krakow.

Posted:

KRAKOW — On Feb. 15, nine days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Oksana Pyzh and her husband packed up their kid, their car and a few of their things, and began the long drive west from their home in Kharkiv, towards Poland, stopping every few hours along the way. A leisurely pace, compared to the flight of those who came after, but there were no bombs then.

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Refugee Ukrainians far from defeated

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The train station in Przemysl on Thursday, April 7, 2022. For Melissa story. Winnipeg Free Press 2022.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
The movement of people is non-stop at the train station in Przemysl.

Posted:

RZESZÓW, Poland — From the outside, the guest house on the edge of Rzeszów looks quiet, tucked on a narrow road that meanders past quaint homes nestled beside sprawling green gardens. A few cars are parked in front, some with Ukrainian licence plates, but the atmosphere here is idyllic and suburban, bordering on rustic.

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On one side, a war-torn nation; on the other, a community of volunteers ready to help refugees

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Aid tents line the walkway to the Medyka border crossing.

Posted:

MEDYKA, Poland — The shopping cart rattles as Art Ballard pushes it through a squashed parking lot, past a warren of small shops advertising meat and candy. Past the spot where buses pause every few minutes to pick up or drop off dozens of riders, who arrive dragging suitcases stuffed with everything they’d taken with them, when they first fled Ukraine.

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Translating and speaking at rallies in Poland: expat Ukrainian a man on a mission

Ukrainian-Canadian Adrian Harasym has offered his translation skills to journalists from around the world. It’s an often difficult experience sharing the refugees’ pain. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press)

Posted:

KRAKOW — In any of the 14 languages that Adrian Harasym can speak, the stories he has heard through this war will haunt him. There was the woman from Bucha, who’d hid in her potato cellar until hunger drove her to flee over streets dotted with corpses. There was the woman at a Krakow train station, who’d escaped Kharkiv with the equivalent of just $20.

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Manitoba-bound mothers fleeing Ukraine with children are terrified, exhausted - but put on a brave face

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Ilona Protynyak, and her children, Demian (five) and Milena (four), walking through the old town in Warsaw. They have been going for long walks to keep the kids occupied while waiting for the Canadian visa paperwork to come through.

Posted:

WARSAW — On the long bus ride out of Ukraine, Nataliia Cherevko’s son, 11-year-old Bohdan, stopped eating. His stomach hurt. Behind them on the bus was another mother, with two sons, and one of them couldn’t eat, either. It was the stress, their mothers thought. It was being a child, and leaving everything they knew behind them.

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Ukrainian refugee on her way to new life in Winnipeg

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Ukrainian refugee Tetiana Maksymtsiv first learned about Winnipeg through a friend who had moved to the city about six years ago. In a few days, she will be flying to Winnipeg to settle in Canada.

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WARSAW — It’s a bitterly cold morning in Poland’s capital, at the heart of the city’s diplomatic row. Outside the concrete-and-glass edifice of the Canadian embassy, about four dozen people are waiting, mostly women with children in tow.

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Students join striking U of M profs in show of solidarity

Tyler Searle 4 minute read Preview

Students join striking U of M profs in show of solidarity

Tyler Searle 4 minute read Friday, Dec. 3, 2021

STUDENTS say they are willing to make sacrifices as they stand in solidarity with striking faculty members at the University of Manitoba.

Many of them joined picketing professors and staff members at a rally at the U of M administration building Thursday despite being caught in the crossfire in the protracted dispute.

“Students are by far and away the ones most affected. We are the collateral damage,” said University of Manitoba Student Union president Brendan Scott.

Scott described the situation at the university as dire, as the longest strike in its history drags on.

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Friday, Dec. 3, 2021

Winnipeg woman among those mourned after shooting rampage

Sarah Lawrynuik 7 minute read Preview

Winnipeg woman among those mourned after shooting rampage

Sarah Lawrynuik 7 minute read Tuesday, Apr. 21, 2020

One of the presumed victims of Nova Scotia’s deadly weekend rampage is being remembered as a kind and gentle soul by those who knew her during her childhood in Winnipeg.

(Elizabeth) Joanne Thomas, 58, and her husband John Zahl, 69, are presumed dead following the events of the weekend in Portapique, N.S. Their home was burned to the ground, but their bodies have not yet been located and identified by authorities.

The nation was left reeling by the deadly events of the weekend, during which a man impersonating an RCMP officer shot multiple people and burned homes in a rampage across the Maritime province. By Tuesday afternoon the death toll had risen to 23 people. The alleged shooter, identified by police as Gabriel Wortman, 51, was killed after being intercepted by police in Enfield, N.S.

“It’s unbelievable that with all the crappy people in this world, that their family is one to get hit like this. It doesn’t even make sense, and we’ll probably never know what happened,” said Jeanine Remillard, from her Winnipeg home.

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Tuesday, Apr. 21, 2020

Foreign workers at Manitoba hotel are owed $138K in unpaid wages and fees, labour board rules

Abiola Odutola 4 minute read Preview

Foreign workers at Manitoba hotel are owed $138K in unpaid wages and fees, labour board rules

Abiola Odutola 4 minute read 11:47 AM CDT

BRANDON — The Manitoba Labour Board has ordered the Western Star All Suites Hotel to pay nearly $138,000 in unpaid wages and administrative fees after it dismissed the appeals involving three foreign workers employed by the company.

In a decision dated Aug. 25, the board ordered 6692452 Manitoba Ltd. (doing business as Western Star All Suites Hotel), 1638185 Alberta Ltd. and company director P.X. to pay a total of $137,915.79 to the Employment Standards Branch for wages owed to foreign workers S.J., J.B. and G.R.

The decision was edited to protect the personal information of the employees, who worked at a hotel, reportedly in Melita, at different times and also lived there during their employment.

The board stated the employees were owed wages after hearing evidence about long working hours, irregular payments, inadequate employment records and working conditions.

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11:47 AM CDT

Writers’ fest program packed with prose pros

Ben Sigurdson 4 minute read Saturday, Sep. 21, 2024

Thin Air, Winnipeg’s long-running writers festival, hits the ground running with a full slate of events in the coming days.

At 7 p.m. tonight at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location, the festival’s Signature series kicks off with the launch of Jenny Heijun Wills’ book Everything and Nothing at All, a collection of essays on beauty, language, reading, love and family that serves as a companion piece of sorts to her 2019 memoir Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. She’ll be joined in conversation by fellow author and University of Winnipeg professor Lindsay Wong. The launch is free, and will be streamed on McNally Robinson’s YouTube channel.

The fest’s first MainStage event in some years takes place Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Ilipvik at WAG-Qaumajuq (300 Memorial Blvd.). MainStage events typically bring a range of writers together under an overarching theme — in this case relationships. Featured authors are 2024 Giller longlisters Caroline Adderson and Shashi Bhat as well as E. McGregor and Oonya Kempadoo. Admission is $15, with tickets available at wfp.to/CbI.

On Thursday from 3:30-4:30 p.m. at the Bill and Helen Norrie Library (15 Poseidon Bay), Free Press columnist Niigaan Sinclair will discuss themes and ideas in his book Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre as part of the festival’s Big Ideas series. The event is free, although registration (at wfp.to/Cbz) is recommended.

King’s Head owner sues law firm over amalgamation fallout

Malak Abas 3 minute read Preview

King’s Head owner sues law firm over amalgamation fallout

Malak Abas 3 minute read Wednesday, Mar. 25, 2026

The owner of downtown Winnipeg staple King’s Head is suing a local law firm, claiming poor legal advice resulted in him taking on undue risk and may have cost him the potential sale of his pub last year.

According to a lawsuit filed earlier this month, King’s Head owner Chris Graves sought the services of Paolo Aquila, a lawyer with Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP, after Graves closed his short-lived seafood restaurant Friskee Pearl at 191 Main St. in October 2023.

According to the documents, Graves had signed a 10-year lease agreement for the building, formerly an Earl’s restaurant, before opening his eatery through the Friskee Pearl Ltd. corporation, separate from the King’s Head corporation. The lease required Friskee Pearl be liable for unpaid rent or other financial obligations, even if the lease was transferred. After Friskee Pearl closed, the lease was transferred to Boujee Restaurant and Bar in March 2024, and Friskee Pearl remained liable.

In June 2024, Graves amalgamated the King’s Head and Friskee Pearl corporations; Aquila oversaw the amalgamation, and Graves regularly sought his advice, the lawsuit says.

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Wednesday, Mar. 25, 2026

Main Street Project to expand to former Mitchell Fabrics building

Ryan Thorpe 4 minute read Preview

Main Street Project to expand to former Mitchell Fabrics building

Ryan Thorpe 4 minute read Tuesday, Sep. 25, 2018

The Main Street Project is moving on up.

The shelter’s administration finalized the purchase of the former Mitchell Fabrics building at Main Street and Logan Avenue on Sept. 21, a move that will revolutionize the services the facility offers to the city’s chronically homeless and addicted.

“It’s still very fresh for us, and we’re very excited. This is probably the first significant shelter, mental health and addictions support expansion of this size in the last 30 years for Winnipeg,” Main Street Project executive director Rick Lees said.

The purchase is the culmination of efforts that began two years ago, when the agency did long-term planning to identify the biggest hurdles it faced moving forward. One key challenge identified was lack of space.

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Tuesday, Sep. 25, 2018