Chechen Mother Wants to Settle in Wielkopolska

One is the wife of President Lech Kaczynski, who has vowed to help Kamisa Dzamaldin obtain refugee status so she can settle in Poland.

Dzamaldin, whose 2-year-old son survived the family’s crossing from Ukraine into Poland, wants to stay in the Wielkopolska area, the daily newspaper Dziennik reports.

Dzamaldin, who lost her three daughters in a dramatic “green border” crossing in Bieszczady, wants to settle down in Wielkopolska, Dziennik informs.

Dzamaldin, one of thousands who have fled the war in Russia’s Chechnya region, wanted to go first to Slovakia and then to Austria, where her husband lives.

But she got lost in the mountains near Bieszczady. She left the girls ? ages 13, 10 and 6 ? while trying to find help.
Polish border guards accompanied her back to the spot where she left her daughters, but it was too late. They had died of exposure.

Poland’s first lady, Maria Kaczynska, visited Dzamaldin and her son in the hospital where they were recovering. She offered to help them obtain refugee status, which is not easy because Poland considers Russia a country that does not persecute its people.

“Poland wants to definitely help this woman because I have never met anyone who has suffered so much,” Kaczynska told the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “And I think it’s really hard to know what she actually feels in her heart.”

Miroslawa Majerowicz-Klaus, who together with her husband runs a small psychotherapy center in Wielkopolska, also offered to help. She invited Dzamaldin to stay at the center.

Dzamaldin was grateful for the offer. “I didn’t want to go to a refugee camp,” she told Radio Merkury. “I have been told this place is like paradise. And it is so. There are good people here. I feel like I’m at my sister’s. Miroslawa and I are like sisters now. I don’t want to go far from this place in the future. I want to live here, in the neighborhood.”

Dzamaldin has decided to stay at the center until she receives refugee status. Once she gets it, she will settle in Wolsztyn, about 20 kilometers away.