border last week. translator: i feel badly for them, he says. the children are small. this little one is innocent. boris holds 2-year-old andrei as if he was his own grandson. these ukrainians have never been to moldova before, but they fled after spending days and nights hiding from russian air strikes in the basement of their home. reporter: the family left on very short notice after hearing warplanes in the night. they packed two suitcases and left with five minutes notice. with no advanced planning, the women rely entirely on the generosity of moldovans for food, shelter and clothing, including for 8-year-old viera. viera says there are very kind people here in moldova. what made you want to help? i don t know how to act differently, you know. reporter: risanda has been
two million refugees today. the u.n. is saying seven, i even heard nine million potential. and these countries, like you mentioned moldova, they re going to quickly become overwhelmed. yeah, yeah, at one stage the number of refugees in moldova was a significant percentage of the population of that country. i think one of the things that is difficult to do sometimes is to get past the numbers. get people to put themselves in the position of these ukrainians fleeing. last month, living normal lives in their homes, kids are in school. they go to work. and then all of the sudden, they re refugees, possessing only what they could carry out. yeah. their families have been ripped apart. at the train station, i met a mother. she traveled for five days. she went by foot. she went by bus. she went by train and she came with her 10-year-old son. but she had to leave behind her 22-year-old son who was forced to stay to fight. and so their families are ripped apart. they don t know if their hom
moldovans, an extraordinary act of collective kindness from one of the poorest countries in europe. asked how long he could afford to continue hosting this ukrainian family, boris told me they can stay as long as they need. ivan watson, cnn, moldova. now when refugees arrive in places like moldova, which you just saw in ivan s report, it can be frightening, of course, and that s where groups like shelter box come in. they hand deliver emergency shelter and supplies to those devastated by war. now shelter box s president says they re working with locals to provide help. . 10 to 20,000 people a day. this is the first stop at the train station. we re in a small town. it s only 60,000 people. and i ll tell you, the polish citizens are the first responders here. at the train station, people are
helping find homes in the village for a few dozen of the hundreds of thousands of ukrainians have fled to moldova in the last few weeks. it s normal to help people in need. some people are hosting refugees. other are donating products, stuffs, things. and others are just praying for peace. reporter: down the road from boris house, we meet valentina. she took in her ukrainian sister-in-law olga and family, including 29-year-old natalia, who is seven months pregnant. translator: we have to stop vladimir putin, olga tells me, or else he ll just keep going, invading countries like mole dove have a and poland. as she speaks, olga s 14-year-old daughter fights to hold back tears. the moldovan government says tens of thousand of refugees are living in the homes of ordinary
now an old quote says that war brings out the worst and the best in people, and some of the best can be seen in a moldovan village within earshot of the ukrainian border. moldova has received more than 80,000 ukrainian refugees. and people in one village are opening their homes and their hear hearts to ukrainians in need. reporter: on the day rausch first attacked ukraine, residents here heard explosions. you can hear sometimes the explosions from ukraine. it s terrifying. reporter: it s not just the sounds of war that are coming across the border. phenomenals of the conflict have come here too. some moldovan villagers have opened their doors to their ukrainian neighbors in their time of need. people like boris. she widower welcomed a mother and two children into his home after they fled across the