‘You can’t show the full scale of terror’
Lisette Reymer watches as huddled-together families scuttle towards a border checkpoint with nothing but a rucksack of belongings in their arms.
When they reach Ukraine’s border with Poland, mothers and children turn to embrace their men one last time.
These scenes are historydefining, the Waikato-raised journalist said.
‘‘You actually get home and have to pinch yourself… What you just saw is real life and that is their reality.
‘‘Seeing them kissing goodbye to their husbands…seeing these kids trying to comprehend everything. They don’t know but the parents do and that is really hard to see… It’s just so sad.’’
This is far from what she could have imagined when she took on her dream role as Newshub’s Europe correspondent.
But, as Reymer said from her hotel room in Poland, the televised coverage broadcast back home could not fully convey what is happening on the ground.
‘‘It’s unfathomable… It’s horrific what is happening,’’ Reymer said.
‘‘It’s so much worse… You can’t show the full scale of terror. You cannot show that on TV or on the radio, you just can’t.
‘‘In some of those evacuation areas, people walking out of their house are getting shot… Mums, dads and children are just getting shot walking out of their homes… I don’t think you can ever put that terror into a story.’’
The grind has been non-stop for Reymer and cameraman Daniel Pannett since Russia invaded the eastern European country on February 24.
Now, the conflict has pushed ever so close to the Polish border with Russian air strikes 16km away in the Ukrainian city of Yavoriv.
The pair have endured long days with sometimes only a couple of hours sleep while documenting stories of Ukrainians fleeing their homeland and the men left behind to fight.
At times, as the Newshub Europe correspondent explains, ‘‘you just feel really guilty’’.
She watches Ukrainian civilians desperate to escape, while her return ticket back to
New Zealand can be booked at anytime.
‘‘They [Ukrainians] don’t have a home, they don’t have a job, they don’t have a school, food, they’ve got a bit of money in their pocket but not an awful lot – this is real life.
‘‘It’s the children who stand out to me as the ones that I think about when I go to sleep, because they’re so young and their lives are completely overturned, and you just know that it’s going to change their lives forever.’’
For those back home in Aotearoa, she said it is important to imagine what is happening in Ukraine as if it was on our own doorstep.
‘‘I think in New Zealand it’s really easy a lot of the time to feel super far away from these things.
‘‘It’s like sitting in Auckland or Hamilton or Christchurch or Wellington and then just seeing bombs come and land on your homes. It’s no different… People who, through no fault of their own, now have total destruction in their backyards and fear and feel like they could die at any minute.’’
Reymer and Pannett see the war being an ongoing event that may push on for months.
But they’re determined to share the stories of the Ukrainian people with the world.
‘‘We don’t want to go home... we just want to keep going,’’ she said.
‘‘We’re going to sit down and map out the next couple of weeks.