Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center is looking for an opportunity to deliver humanitarian aid to Donbas

A recent escalation of military conflict and closed checkpoints in "B" sector led to the fact that since the 3rd of June Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center cannot deliver products to its logistic warehouse in Donetsk.  As a result, the stocks of food packages for civilians in non-government-controlled areas are running out. Today, on the 9th of June, Donbas Arena stopped issuing children packages. In other issuing points of NGCA the Humanitarian Center's volunteers are issuing the residues of survival kit stocks. Shipment of food packages to the issuing points in the closest towns to Donetsk is stopped.

 

 

The hope to send the convoys to Donetsk on the 9th of June didn't come true. On Tuesday morning it was decided to redirect the convoy to Mariupol. It consists of 16 heavy-duty trucks with food products and was supposed to travel from Dnipropetrovsk to Donetsk. Today 320 tons of food products will be delivered to logistic centre in Mariupol; they will be used to form 25,000 survival kits for adults.

 

 

"This is a forced decision to redirect the convoy to Mariupol. Since the checkpoints in "B" sector in Donetsk are closed, the Humanitarian Center has made this decision. According to the schedule, delivery to Mariupol was supposed to be organized later, but to secure effective use of time it is already delivered. This aid is aimed for benefit-entitled categories of IDPs, who live there, and local civilians from the settlements on the contact line", – Maksym Rovinsky, volunteer of the Humanitarian Center, says.

 

 

Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center is taking all the possible steps for another convoy, consisting of 26 trucks and 30,000 survival kits, which stopped moving on the 3rd of June and waiting in Kurakhove, to enter Donetsk.

 

"26 heavy-duty trucks are in Kurakhove now, – Grigory Koldunov, Director of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center, commented the situation. – The Humanitarian Center cannot find the corridor, which they could take to cross the contact line, as all the checkpoints in "B" sector are blocked. Yesterday, on June 8, we made an attempt to pass through a checkpoint near Artemivsk ("C" sector). But, unfortunately, this attempt came to nothing. First, all our documents are formalized for the issuing point in "B" sector. Second, the checkpoint is entirely focused on civilians and the Border Service does not know how to deal with humanitarian aid – they do not have a clear passage order, the list of documents, that must be formalized for each car when passing the contact line, is not regulated".

 

 

 

Today Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center sent a letter with a request for assistance in humanitarian aid passage through "B" or "C" sector to Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Viktor Muzhenko.

 

"Today we sent a letter to Viktor Muzhenko, describing the situation and asking to help our humanitarian convoy to pass through the only working checkpoint in Artemivsk, – Grigory Koldunov shares. – The Humanitarian Center is waiting for the response and hopes it is positive. Otherwise, if the convoy does not arrive in Donetsk, we will have to return it back to Dnipropetrovsk, restructure it, and check product quality indicators. This will result in disrupted regularity of orders and deliveries. And nobody knows when this process gets adjusted again".

 

 

 

The most vulnerable categories of population in ATO area are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. According to UN estimates, there are more than 3 million people living behind the contact line, most of them are experiencing significant problems with access to food. Among these people there are 365,000 elderly people and 40,000 children, who are constantly provided with aid from Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center. Every month about 500,000 people on both sides of the contact line receive humanitarian aid from the Center.

 

 

As of June 9, 2015, during the whole period of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center's operation they issued 3,333,549 food packages for adults and 234,729 packages specially for children on both sides of the contact line in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.