Bradenton Photographer Who Documented Refugees Returns To Ukraine

BRADENTON, FL — Photographer Allan Mestel is no stranger to documenting and interacting with refugees.

For years, he’s worked with an organization called Witness at the Border, documenting the makeshift migrant encampments established on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as U.S. border towns in Texas and deportations of Central American immigrants.

But he’s never felt so emotionally overwhelmed as when he traveled to the border of Poland and Ukraine mid-March to photograph refugees escaping the war with Russia, which was fairly fresh at the time. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had started just weeks before his trip and a steady stream of refugees — more than 3.5 million of them total, according to the United Nations — was crossing the border daily seeking safety.

“That was the height of the exodus of refugees from Ukraine,” the Bradenton photographer told Patch, and he couldn’t get the haunting images out of his head.

Ever since he returned to Florida, Mestel has been dreaming of going back to Poland and Ukraine. Now, he’ll return over the July 4 weekend with a Sarasota woman, Adelia Moyano, who is bringing medical supplies and other aid to those remaining in the country. The two met after Patch featured their efforts in Ukraine in separate stories.

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His first trip to Poland “had an enormous impact on me,” he said. “I've photographed refugees and migrants from South and Central America quite extensively. Despite what these people might have been through, there was always this sort of undercurrent of hope that things were going to get better, that there was a chance…Almost 100 percent of them had some glimmer of hope.”

This is a stark difference from the demeanor of the Ukrainian refugees.

“In Ukraine, there was absolutely none of that hope. These refugees were completely shell shocked and in complete disbelief that this had happened to them,” he said. “They didn’t want to flee Ukraine. Their lives were full of meaning and purpose and joy. These people literally had lives that they didn’t want to leave ripped out from under them. Homes destroyed. Families split up. The men remained behind to join the armed forces. It was an overwhelming experience of seeing human misery. All because of a lunatic dictator (Russian president Vladimir Putin.)”

Mestel plans to document Moyano’s aid mission and help where he can.

“I don't have any expectations. My intent, as always, is to document the human experience, to do what I can to photograph the people and try to capture with my camera, try to portray people where they are emotionally in the moment and keep myself out of the frame,” he said.

Moyano is accepting donations for her aid mission through GoFundMe. She’s also looking for specific medical supplies such as chest drains, surgical staplers and tracheotomy kits.