Ukraine: Schwertner (Caritas Vienna), “in Uschgorod you can see the pain on people’s faces”. Appeal for new humanitarian aid
Klaus Schwertner, chief executive of Caritas in Vienna, has launched an appeal from the Ukrainian western border city of Uzhgorod, to provide ongoing help to people in Ukraine. “Please don’t give up, let’s try to provide much more help,” Schwertner asked through Caritas channels. He expects the “longest aid marathon that we in Europe will have to carry out since the Second World War”. Last Sunday Schwertner left Vienna with a Caritas team for the Ukrainian-Slovak border to deliver relief supplies. In Uschgorod, air raid sirens sounded throughout the city, said the director of Caritas, highlighting the criticality of the situation. “People quickly grasped the essentials and then fled to a shelter. Luckily it was one of the many false alarms “. But even though the region has so far been spared from hostilities, “war is omnipresent throughout the city of Uzhgorod”. Uzhgorod had 117,000 inhabitants, now there are between 230 and 250,000 people living there at least temporarily, Schwertner said. No one knows exactly how many IDPs from other parts of Ukraine have actually been refugees in schools, sports halls, hotels and private accommodation
The chief executive of Caritas of the archdiocese of Vienna spoke to women, children and the elderly who fled to the train station, the city’s food distribution center and the reception camp. In meetings “you can see the suffering and pain on people’s faces,” Schwertner said. The willingness to help is still impressive: “Thousands of volunteers who since February 24 have spent themselves to give as much help as possible, at the train station here in Uzhgorod, in the emergency reception centers, organizing humanitarian transports in Ukraine and transporting refugees to other European countries “. This shows how important donations from all over the world and also from Austria are. “Please continue to help, we stand by our neighbors in Ukraine, let’s not disappoint them in these difficult times”, was the final appeal of the director of Caritas.