Lending a hand: support for internally displaced people in Vinnytsia Oblast
Published: Aug 10, 2022 Reading time: 2 minutes
About 40 centres hosting internally displaced persons in the Khmelnitskyi district of the Vinnytsia Oblast received refrigerators, ovens, beds, mattresses, hygiene kits, and other assistance. Each centre accommodates between 70 and 100 people from the east and south of Ukraine. Thanks to the King Baudouin Foundation's support, we have improved the living conditions in these centres.
Irina was travelling from Donetsk oblast with her husband, daughter and grandson. Throughout the journey, they were chased by artillery fire. Irina considers it a miracle that their car was not hit by Russian fire. Barely rested, the family received terrible news. Their son Serhiy, who was evacuated from another settlement, sustained multiple shrapnel injuries to his abdomen. He was taken to a hospital in Kramatorsk, then sent to Dnipro, and from there, he was transported to Vinnytsia for the final stages of treatment and long-term rehabilitation. Irina’s daughter and the grandson left for Poland, and themselves they went to Vinnytsia Oblast. Today they live on the Children and Youth Sports School campus in Zhmerynka, and they are waiting for their son to get better and return from the hospital. The family has nowhere to go, so they are looking for a house to settle in.
Anatolii has a different story. His grandchildren remained in their native Kharkiv oblast. They refused to leave and stayed to take care of their older relatives. Every day, they write by messenger about the horrors they have experienced. In his 82 years, Anatolii never believed that war could knock on his door. He worked all his life in government institutions and was confident that after the active military fighting in 2014, all issues would be resolved through diplomacy. Only when his neighbours’ houses were destroyed did he realise the scale of the situation and personally forced his daughter and son-in-law to leave.
Anatolii’s neighbour is Iryna from Kharkiv. She is confident that the main thing is preserving life; the rest can be rebuilt. Irina has a large family of two adults and seven school-age children who left their home on the 24th of February. The decision was made quickly, as they lived near the airfield, which was bombed very early in the fighting. Now Iryna’s husband is working as a handyman on local farms. The children are studying remotely, and the eldest daughter is preparing to enter university. Subsequently, they hope to settle somewhere nearby and help those displaced from the east and south of the country.
