A separate checkpoint will solve the problem with delivery of humanitarian aid to Donbas – Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center

Since the checkpoints in "B" sector are closed for 9 days already, Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center cannot deliver food products to its warehouse. Hundreds of thousands of people, civilians of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, are under the threat of famine. During the press briefing in "Ukrainian News" Information Agency Grigory Koldunov, Director of the Humanitarian Center, told about the situation with humanitarian aid delivery.  Representatives of OSCE and Red Cross Society were present at the briefing. 

"The escalation of military actions led to the fact that Humanitarian Center cannot cross the contact line and deliver food products to Donbas civilians who live across this line. That convoy with products, which started from Dnipropetrovsk for Donetsk on the 3rd of June, continues to run between towns in search of a corridor. The checkpoints in "B" sector are closed, a checkpoint in "C" sector in Artemivsk allows individuals only and not adapted for freight traffic. We addressed the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Viktor Muzhenko, requesting to allow our humanitarian aid to pass in "B" or "C" sectors, whichever of them is open. 

At the moment there are 26 trucks with food near the checkpoint in Maryinka. In the morning this checkpoint resumed its operation for a while, but by the moment our trucks arrived at the customs, it was closed again because of renewed shelling. Our convoy is waiting for further succession of events, we have time till 20:00, the deadline for crossing the contact line", – Grigory Koldunov informed.

Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center cannot deliver food products to non-government-controlled areas for over a week. The volume of blocked humanitarian aid makes 175,000 survival kits for adults and 10,000 packages for children. Due to disruption of planned food deliveries to the Humanitarian Center's logistic warehouse at Donbas Arena stadium, one-third of the issuing points in ATO area are closed today.

"We have built a system of providing humanitarian assistance to Donbas civilian population on both sides of the contact line, which is based on regularity of food supplies to logistic centers. For today this regularity is disrupted. As a result, the logistic center in Donetsk has no food stocks, and our issuing points in NGCA are being closed. But we see the solution to this problem - to reorient one of the checkpoints on the contact line to work specifically with humanitarian aid for Donbas civilians, both from international and Ukrainian organizations. For example, Volnovakha could become such kind of checkpoint. Having divided the flow of commercial and non-commercial goods, we will understand that humanitarian aid will reach the civilian population in NGCA free from obstacles and without restrictions in timing. We will look for every opportunity to help people, who are in trouble, to survive. Position of Rinat Akhmetov remains unchanged – the Humanitarian Center helped, helps and will help Donbas civilians", – Grigory Koldunov emphasized.