EDA volunteer’s first hand account
Maggie Tookey, a 71 year old volunteer with Edinburgh Direct Aid (EDA), is currently in Ukraine.
She has just returned to Lviv, having teamed up with Norwegian and Ukrainian volunteers to make a long and difficult trip to Kremenchuk and Kharkiv in north east Ukraine.
In Kharkiv, they delivered thyroxin & wound dressings to a hospital in the west of the city; they were lucky as the heavy shelling at that time was in the north of the city. In Kremenchuk, they brought food to traumatised displaced people from Kharkiv.
Maggie says it is the stories of the elderly that she finds particularly distressing – just as she did when helping elderly victims of the Syrian conflict in recent years: “forced not only to witness death taking place in front of them but also knowing that the final years of their lives may never be spent in their own homes again”.
This is her story …
THE FIRST WEEK IN UKRAINE BEGINNING 24th APRIL 2022
So it’s one week since arriving in Ukraine to begin EDA’s third session in this embattled but extremely resiliant country.
The resistance goes on and just about the whole world is here trying to support that resistance. Still there is the belief from all the displaced Ukranians I meet through our EDA distribution programme, that Ukraine simply can’t lose this war. We can only hope that they’re right.
I’m now in Kremenchuk in Poltava region – central/eastern Ukraine and probably considered the first reasonably safe place reachable from the hell of Kharkiv, around 200km away. We arrived here – ‘we’ being Ira, our constant translator and ‘fixer’ and Knut, our big gentle Norwegian driver with his rusty but trusty Sprinter van, late on Friday night. The journey was long and took us 2 days of fairly non stop driving.
The van is like a Tardis. It just seems to keep holding more and more valuable aid so we just kept filling it until finally Knut said enough! It was overloaded but he thought it would be OK and it was. The last item we loaded as a special request was 150 civilian body bags to help with the numbers of dead in the badly hit city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. It was a sobering request but we had the space so we were able to help – why wouldn’t we? The bags would be taken onto Kharkiv from Kremenchuk.
The first portion of the journey was fine – fast on good roads and enough fuel stations to keep the tank topped up even though we were rationed to 20 litres.
The second part of the journey which was around a 1000km in total because of diversions for damaged roads etc, was far more challenging – some of it was ‘off road’ and the rest was over the most pot holed surfaces I’ve ever experienced.
It was so bad that we kept losing various fixtures and fittings off the van – the jarring was endless and exhausting but the main problem was the scarcity of diesel. We begged and pleaded but the little fuel available was reserved for emergency and military vehicles and not even to humble volunteer bringers of aid.
We had bought more fuel containers so could carry around 80 litres of diesel but these were the reserve. We needed to keep the tank reasonably full. On one occasion we were allowed up to the front of the queue but one time we sneaked in through the ‘no entry’ route on the advice of a local and came to a pump facing the queue. Smiling broadly and constantly and looking dim works wonders as does Ira our translator who probably sheltered us from much Ukranian swearing.
Kremenchuk is a small city of around 75,000 but 22,000 Internally Displaced people have arrived in the city since the beginning of this month. It’s a typical Soviet style place – mostly large blocks of flats and 70% of its population speak Russian. Most of the displaced have fled from Kharkiv and as ever, there are some terrible stories.
The distribution has taken two different pathways. We were supplying the increasing number of IDP shelters springing up out of necessity around the city – the pressure on the Municipality is great so every aid shipment is important.
We were able to unload into a big store room here and sort out what is needed for each shelter working with the local volunteer coordinator as our guide.
The second pathway involved working with the local priest who helps many individual families in his ‘parish’, listing their needs and passing these on to anyone who might be able to help. We were royally treated by the priest and his family – they were a delight. We were hugely over fed! Once again the admiration for these volunteers and the support they try to bring to their communities is admirable.
Food shortages cause problems for all in Ukraine and although these local volunteers are not enduring constant rocket attacks like Kharkiv and other places, the deprivations of war are suffered by all.
Once again the terrible stories are told when we visit the IDP’s in the shelters. Most here are from Kharkiv, some from Donetsk and the Donbas.
They are all distressing stories but perhaps none more so than by the elderly who are forced not only to witness death take place in front of them but know that the final years of their lives may never be spent in their own homes again. I find these the hardest to deal with.
One lady of 85, Varanella, from a rural village near Luhanske, came face to face with a Russian soldier when he entered her house as she was trying to escape.
He pointed his gun at her chest ready to shoot – terrified she turned and ran into the toilet but he opened fire on her fleeing back -somehow he missed and she bolted the door but he continued firing – the bullets only partially penetrated the metal door and thick walls – she cowered in terror and finally he seemed to get bored and went off to some other house but not before trashing the inside of hers.
She stayed there until dark and then managed to get help escaping from the village to a safer town and onto Kremenchuk. She cried constantly through the telling of this story, still reliving the horror of what happened. Many of her elderly neighbours were not so lucky. She was severely traumatised.
So now she has safety, warmth, support, companionship, and food – what she doesn’t have is her beloved home and this is the greatest wish for all those I met in Kremenchuk. We spent 4 days around the shelters and individual families distributing a lot of aid but mostly we talked.
I seemed to represent some symbol of hope to them but I felt a fraud. In the end what can I do – listen and hug!
UPDATE: THURSDAY 5th MAY
EDA is just back late last night from Kharkiv very close to the Russian border and a very dangerous place to be. There is constant shelling in some parts of the city and many have died there.
I was part of a larger food and medical aid delivery by the Ukraine Guardian Angels group – all volunteers just like us.
EDA was delivering much needed Thyroxin and eye medication and wound dressings. We were pleased to complete the job safely.
EDA and its team had also just completed a 4 day distribution of urgent food and hygiene goods in the small city of Kremenchuk, in Central/eastern Ukraine.
The city and its fantastic local Ukrainian teams of volunteers are now under huge pressure to offer shelter to over 22,000 displaced and traumatised people who have fled Kharkiv and other Eastern cities being flattened by constant Russian shelling.
Edinburgh Direct Aid does what it can but it can only do what the funding allows. We need delivery transport, food and medical supplies. These are the basics. If we get help with these we can DELIVER. We are now back in Lviv taking a breather!
The Edinburgh Direct Aid Ukraine Relief Fund, which supports Maggie’s work, can be found at:
https://www.peoplesfundraising.com/fundraising/help-for-ukraine