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    Roma refugees who fled from Ukraine to Moldova are now in limbo

    Many slipped across the border as the war began, but lack passports or other official forms of ID. They struggle to prove their eligibility for humanitarian aid — and to cross into other countries.
    by Betsy Joles May 21, 2022 6 minutes
    Raise Grigorievna Dreama's daughters Malina (left) and Ramina (center) and her granddaughter Monica (right) sit in their room at a temporary Chisinau housing center for refugees, mostly hosting people from the Roma community and other minority groups from Ukraine, in April.

    CHISINAU, Moldova — Angelina Leonidovna Kovach decided to leave the Ukrainian city Kharkiv in the second week of March, emerging from her basement refuge into a country under fire. She crossed from Ukraine into neighboring Moldova with a group of her relatives — all members of Ukraine's Roma minority.

    Now, in a university building turned temporary refugee center in Moldova's capital Chisinau, Kovach and other Roma are in limbo. Entire families live together in classrooms emptied of desks to make space for beds. Mothers find a quiet corner to feed their babies while older children fill time by playing card games in the hallway.

    People who have travel documents can leave for other countries in Europe and beyond. People who don't cannot. Kovach, 35, doesn't have her passport — it got left back in Ukraine in the rush to evacuate.

    When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in late February, she was visiting family in Kharkiv, in the north, and

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