A Scot who travelled to war-torn Ukraine to volunteer has told how he slept on a church floor while terrifying air raid sirens rang out.
Brave Neil Broome, 42, took a flight to Krakow, Poland, from Edinburgh on March 4 as he embarked on the first leg of his journey.
The landscape gardener from Jedburgh, eventually reached Lviv in western Ukraine - an area at the centre of the refugee exodus.
Travelling with six other volunteers, the group spent a tense first night as they scrambled to find accommodation before the city's 10pm curfew.
Neil spent the night sleeping on the floor of a church but the haunting sound of air raid sirens led them to being moved into bunker rooms.
Speaking to the Daily Record, he said: "The first night in Lviv we couldn’t find any accommodation before the curfew.
"A hotel helped us and got us into this church, we slept on the floor and then the air raid sirens went off that night.
"They have small bunkered rooms we went into to take shelter."
Ex- military man Neil and the group, travelled to the city through a Polish border crossing that was packed with refugees.
They stayed at the border check point for a day helping to put up shelters for food and other donations for those fleeing the country.
There he met six other volunteers and the group decided to travel into Ukraine as a unit.
Neil told how queues of traffic 50km long alongside 2km lines of people trying to escape from Ukraine formed along the streets.
After spending a night in a church, he set off to one of Lviv's packed train stations where fleeing Ukrainians were arriving.
Describing the horrendous scenes on the ground, Neil continued: "People had fled their homes with their pets - but by the time they arrived at the station the animals were dead.
"We had to cut wood to keep the fires going because the snow was coming down and it was so cold.
"The number of women and children arriving was just unbelievable.
"I had one woman who just broke down, she was going to Sweden to live with relatives but she just wanted to go home.
"They all want to live in Ukraine, they don't want to be refugees."
According to UN data, Russia's war on Ukraine has forced more than three million people to flee the country in search of refuge.
After arriving home on Monday, Neil launched a fundraiser to get vital ambulances and minibuses filled with medical supplies over to Ukraine.
He explained: "The medical supplies aren't getting to the people who need it. They were short on minibuses and ambulances, which can be used to pick up elderly and vulnerable people from areas like Kyiv who can't take trains and other transport.
"Volunteers were asking us if there was any way we could get funding to help with this."
He is hoping to raise at least £10,000 and says he has contacts in place in Ukraine to ensure the donations would get to the right people.
You can donate to his fundraiser here.
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