They woke up to snow in Zhmerynka, a town in Ukraine some 400km east of the Polish border — where the Ukrainian night train started its 16-hour journey towards Odesa.
By then, the young Ukrainian fashion designer who had restarted her life in Alicante, Spain, had quietly stepped off the train, careful not to wake the small boy and his mother still deep in their slumber.
Earlier that evening, she had shown them in the sleeping cabin they shared, images on her phone of a spectacular...
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Already a member? Login hereNikolaj joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.