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Musicians with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine have joined 1.8 million refugees who have fled the country.
Orchestra members, along with other young musicians, were headed to Slovenia as part of a joint evacuation mission with a Slovenian orchestra, according to The Associated Press.
The Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine is made up of musicians between the ages of 12 and 22, according to the orchestra website.
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AP spoke with one of the musicians and a Slovenian volunteer at a train station in Hungary while they waited for more of their group to arrive.
“There’s a group of about 90 people coming to this particular train station,” Uros Dokl, a volunteer from Slovenia who traveled 413 miles to meet with the musicians, told AP. “Not all of them are members of the orchestra, but they are young people playing music, and young people of course need guidance.”
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Myroslava Sherbina, 20, is one of the musicians in the orchestra headed to Slovenia. She told AP that the only item she brought with her out of Ukraine was her violin and the clothes she was wearing.
Refugees wait in a crowd for transportation after fleeing from the Ukraine and arriving at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
She also said she hasn’t played her violin since Russia invaded Ukraine.
“I didn’t want to play so I could hear the sirens and we could go to the bomb shelter,” she told AP.
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Though she believes the war in Ukraine will end soon, Sherbina told AP she decided to go to Slovenia in the interim to feel secure.
“I want to feel safe so I can practice, and not think that a bomb can fall and ruin my house,” she said.
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As of Monday morning, more than 1.8 million refugees have fled Ukraine, according to the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Some 4 million people may flee Ukraine if Russia’s offensive continues, the U.N. has said. On Monday, European Union foreign affairs policy chief Josep Borrell urged the mobilization of “all the resources” of the 27-nation bloc to help countries welcoming them.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: www.foxnews.com