CHICAGO (NewsNation) — Many Ukrainian refugees have fled to nearby countries in Europe, such as Poland, Slovakia and Romania, while others are looking to move further west to escape Russia’s invasion. 

Since the invasion started on Feb. 24, 282,000 people have fled to Hungary, 270,000 to the Czech Republic and 491,000 to Romania, with the most refugees — 1.97 million — in Poland, according to government and U.N. data.

Lucy Beck has been in Romania for about two weeks with CARE, which stands for Cooperative Assistance Relief Everywhere, alongside other relief workers helping refugees at the border.

“I think this is an unprecedented crisis in a number of ways. But certainly, we’re seeing, maybe in Romania, 2000 people crossing a day at each of the separate border points that we have. And there’s a number of entry points across the northeast,” Beck said.

Beck said refugees are traveling in very cold conditions, wearing what they can, but aren’t able to carry much, so when they arrive at the border, they are immediately given blankets, hot food and hot drinks.

Many local businesses and communities are supporting refugees, giving out food and other goods, but Beck said Romania wasn’t prepared for a crisis like this.

“They were never prepared for a crisis like this. This is not something that was in planning; this is not something that you can be prepared for. So there’s huge strains at the borders, people registering them, huge strains on providing transport, onward to destinations, because most people are actually looking to carry on to other European countries or further afield,” Beck said.

She also said people are worrying because there are a lot of women and young children at risk of trafficking or about what could happen to people along their route.

“The services here aren’t set up to deal with children arriving on their own or to deal with women and girls who may go missing,” Beck explained. “There’s a huge amount of kind of logistics, capacity and support that you need to really make sure that people are able to travel safely and that they can get the support they need.”

Beck has covered other refugee crises, but she said one thing that is different about this one compared to others is families leaving their male members behind.

“I see a lot where families are torn apart. But here, you know, this isn’t an active policy. These are people that are making that call to leave their brothers, their fathers, their sons behind because they’re worried for their life. But that doesn’t stop them being obviously worried for their sons and fathers and how that’s going to look when they return home.

Families have been ripped apart, leaving many questioning will they still be there or how they will regroup in the longer term.

“I think it’s going to have huge devastating consequences for people and really, this is when people tell me their stories, these are kind of the moments where they will they will break down in tears when they’re thinking about the people that they’ve left behind,” Beck said.