Fleeing Ukraine: The Forced Migration Journeys of Black African Students

Abstract

This study utilizes qualitative interview data to chronicle the migration journeys of 15 Black African international students who escaped the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. This research addresses a literature gap related to the vulnerabilities and challenges experienced by non-national minorities in times of crisis. While the migration journey out of Ukraine was difficult for both nationals and non-nationals, interview data highlights how Black African international students faced specific obstacles related to their foreignness and race. Their problems frequently centered on accessing information, decision making, and experiencing racial discrimination.

Keywords:

• Forced displacement
• Ukraine
• international students
• Africans
• information sharing
• decision making
• racial discrimination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Names were changed to protect the identities of respondents. Interviewees’ ages and countries of origin are noted on first reference.

2 Elijah Anderson (2015) views “white space” as settings previously only occupied by white people – including white neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, restaurants, and other public spaces. Black people often regard these places as being informally off limits to them but are often required to navigate white spaces to go about their everyday lives.

3 The authors follow the Associated Press and other organizations in capitalizing the “B” in “Black” and not the “w” in “white.” People who are Black have strong historical and cultural connections, including experiences of racial discrimination. This is not generally true of white people, and capitalizing this term risks conveying legitimacy to white supremacists who encourage this practice (see Daniszewski, 2020). The authors write of “Black Africans” because there are significant populations of white Africans of European descent in countries such as South Africa, Namibia, and Angola. There are also smaller populations of white Africans in Madagascar, Morocco, Kenya, Senegal, Tunisia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. All participants in this study are Black, and being Black often played an important role in their forced migration experiences.

4 The global refugee regime “encompasses the rules, norms, principles, and decision-making procedures that govern states’ responses to refugees” (Betts, 2015). It includes the norms entrenched in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which defines who is a refugee and what rights they are entitled to under international law. In Europe, the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) provides common minimum standards for the treatment of asylum seekers (see European Commission, n.d.).

5 Respondents were sent a written project summary and consent form to sign electronically before their interview. They were again informed of the project’s aims and their rights as participants on Zoom, during which time they provided a secondary verbal consent. This project was approved by the authors’ institutional Internal Review Board (IRB) and conforms to ethical research guidelines, including protections related to data collection, storage, and dissemination.

6 Tense political rhetoric had been common since the 2014 start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, when Russia annexed Crimea and supported pro-Russia separatists in the Donbas region.

7 Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared martial law and notified the United Nations of his intention to derogate from various human rights treaties in the interest of national security (see United Nations, 2022). Among these derogations was the right to freedom of movement, with Ukraine banning most men ages 18 to 60 from leaving the country and raising the likelihood they would be conscripted to fight for the Ukrainian military. Such a ban does not apply to foreign nationals, who maintain their freedom of movement and cannot be forced to fight in a foreign military. Charli Carpenter (2022) warns that some non-national men remained mistakenly trapped in Ukraine because of this policy. She further contends that limiting Ukrainian civilian men’s freedom of movement constitutes a worrying human rights concern – not only for non-nationals, but to all people trapped in Ukraine against their will.