September 3, 2015
Ukraine
The riots are still ongoing in the east of Ukraine. It has already impacted 1.4 million internally displaced persons and another one million asylum seekers in bordering countries. A quarter of a million suffer from the lack of food, medicine and shelter. As a result of the conflict nearly 7,000 people were killed and over 17,000 were wounded in the east of the country.
Two million residents, living along the combat zone, have similarly tough living conditions. There are no functional banks and ATMs, which prevents access to finance, benefits and pensions. Health care is almost entirely unavailable; the supply of medications is not regular. Some areas are with no food or drinking water because the trucks need a permit for entry into the combat zone. It is either not possible to receive the permission or the process of obtaining it takes a few weeks. In addition to this water pipes were damaged by military operations.
The situation is critical for organisations providing aid to victims of the conflict as well. Self-appointed leaders of the People’s Republic of Donetsk declared on July 14, 2015 that the United Nations together with local and international NGOs must go through the registration at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as well as at the Humanitarian Committee. At the same time the People’s Republic of Lugansk made the same requirement. While organisations can operate freely in areas under the control of the government, both republics consider activities of unregistered organizations as illegal. Although the registration process is very difficult and often subjective, Caritas Ukraine and many other organizations have successfully undergone it. The humanitarian workers are completely safe, but the situation in the country is constantly being monitored.
Caritas Ukraine seeks assistance at several levels. The mobile team distributed 5,500 food packages in Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Zaporozhe and Kramatorsk financed by Caritas Germany and Switzerland. Caritas Ukraine increased the number of delivered packages for Zaporizska and Donetsk areas, so for this reason both food and hygiene supplies will reach 4,300 households.
Caritas Ukraine runs a multipurpose community centre to provide social services and promote employment for local and internally displaced people in Dnepropetrovsk. Later this centre should serve to care for people planning to settle down permanently in Dnepropetrovsk. Caritas Ukraine focuses on the issues connected with the winter season. It plans to build a living space in currently abandoned multilevel buildings with no windows, heating and gas standing near the combat line.
Besides that it strives for quick economic recovery of people affected by the conflict. So far it provided aid in the form of cash donations for 5,000 households in the Kharkov, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhe areas. The other 943 people received a multipurpose donation through participation of Caritas Austria.
In order to continue meeting the needs, Caritas Ukraine plans to publish a call the worldwide charity network. It is going to pay attention to particular situation in the western part of Ukraine where there are shortfalls in funding and service provision.
Also the Czech Charities provide aid in Ukraine via the support of generous donors who contribute to the collections for the Caritas for Ukraine.
