Moldovans honoured for their warm welcome to refugees from Ukraine

As these scenes unfolded at the Palanca border crossing between Ukraine and its smallest neighbour, Moldova, Moldovan citizens were already mobilizing to help the arriving refugees. Donations of food, warm clothes and blankets began pouring to the border, people arrived in private vehicles to offer transportation, and across the country families opened their doors to those fleeing.

Among them were Zaharii and Tatiana Arama, a couple who run a guest house surrounded by gently rolling fields and vineyards a few kilometres from the border at Palanca village. When refugees began streaming across the border, they joined many of their neighbours in providing hot meals and a place to sleep, opening their guesthouse to families from Ukraine and, when that was full, setting up camp beds in their own home.

"You see people in need, scared…it's a human thing to help," Zaharii told reporters in 2022. "That's the way we were brought up. We did what we had to do."