Belarusian activist Ann* fled her homeland for Ukraine in 2021 after her community collective was shut down by the state, along with 1,180 other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that have been liquidated since the country’s post-election protests in 2020.
A year later, she was forced to leave Kyiv after Russia invaded Ukraine. Ann now lives in an EU country, where her status is precarious and she must reapply to renew her humanitarian residence permit every year.
She needs a source of income and somewhere to live – as do her NGO colleagues, less than a dozen of them, who also left Belarus. None could remain after their NGO was criticised in a social media post by Andrei Mukavozchyk, one of the country’s top state propagandists.
