Humanitarian aid in war-torn territories – Spring 2023
Daryna TokmachovaOver the past year, more than 540 Ukrainian hospitals have been bombed and 173 completely destroyed. While medical needs are immense throughout the country, aid to the Kharkiv region, which has been heavily bombed, partially occupied and looted, remains a priority area of work for AMC France-Ukraine, which regularly delivers medicines, medical supplies, equipment and hygiene products. Close collaboration with the Kharkiv regional and municipal councils allows for rapid reporting of needs, their updating in real time and the assistance of local stakeholders to organize the distribution of this aid to hospitals.
The photo opposite is evocative of the difficulties in the city. Indeed, if here it is the Emergency Situations Service and the National Guard unloading a truck of humanitarian aid intended for a hospital in Kharkiv, it is because its staff currently has very few men, mobilized or having left the area dangerously close to the front line.
Another region particularly devastated by the war is that of Kherson. The region suffered heavy destruction and looting during the withdrawal of Russian troops from part of its territory in November 2022. The hospitals were not spared, some of them being the subject of numerous ambulance thefts.
Since then, the region and especially its administrative center have been regularly bombed, which makes it difficult to repair infrastructure and rebuild. In the hospitals of Kherson, powered by generators, the medical staff officiate under airstrikes. The medical teams work 24/7 to care for the inhabitants of Kherson and provide emergency care to the victims of bombings. The association received a request for medicines from one of the city’s hospitals, which it hopes to respond to soon.
The Mykolaiv region recovered almost all of its territory last November, but the after-effects of the occupation and the war are still visible. Thanks to funding from the Egis Foundation, we were able to provide the intervention teams of the Disaster Medicine service, on the front line to save lives, with a Toyota 4X4, capable of transporting up to 13 people and the medical equipment needed to intervene with the inhabitants of the bombed villages, who have long been deprived of adequate medical care.
