Hranitne: delivery of humanitarian aid under shelling

Today, on November 10, the team of mobile issuance from Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center made its first visit to Hranitne village in Volnovakha raion. This settlement is located on the contact line, the access to it is constrained, the local population survives without the comforts and benefits of civilization and regular food supply. 

Over the working day the Humanitarian Center's volunteers are planning to issue 450 survival kits for the most vulnerable categories of civilians in Hranitne. The village is suffering an acute shortage of food, that’s why people started gathering since early morning near the school, where the aid issuance took place. Most of the population that keeps staying in the constantly shelled village are elderly and disabled people and those, who can't afford moving out.

"In the morning our volunteers had certain difficulties during the trip, they had to wait quite long at the checkpoint to get permission to pass. The situation there is very tense and dangerous, shelling recur periodically. Shortly before our departure, we found out that a shell hit almost into the place where our issuance was supposed to take place. There is a shell crater at that spot now, and it is impossible to drive up and unload the packages. To protect the local residents and volunteers we changed the place of issuance, and now people are getting humanitarian aid in the school building", – Yevheniia Rzaieva, the Head of "Humanitarian Aid" direction at Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center, shares.

The request for humanitarian assistance for the residents of Hranitne was sent to the Humanitarian Center by the head of the village council. There is no electricity and connection in the village for a long time. According to Yevheniia, the day before, to call the Humanitarian Center's staff, the representatives of the village council went up the hill near the village and to catch the signal.

"There is no heating in the village as well. The school building, where the issuance took place, is not heated and has no electricity. That is why everything should be done during the daylight. Since the second half of October our mobile teams started working indoors: there may be no heating in the building, but at least there is no wind and rain. It is more convenient both for the locals and our volunteers. Even though such scheme takes more time to unload the packages, it is not as bad as the fact that people have to stand in cold for 8 hours", – Yevheniia Rzaieva says.

The mobile teams of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center are working in nine raions of Donetsk region. The project was launched in May 2015. Mobile food delivery from the Humanitarian Center allows helping people in remote settlements, where it's not always possible to open a fixed issuing point.

Over five months the Center's mobile volunteers visited over 180 villages, settlements and small towns on both sides of the contact line. These are Yasynuvata, Volnovakha, Artemivsk, Dzerzhynsk, Marinka, Amvrosiivka, Shakhtarsk, Telmanove and Novoazovsk raions.

As of November 10, 2015, the humanitarian aid from the Center's mobile volunteers was received by more than 60,000 people.