In a cramped, dark bunker in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 40-year-old Natalia is hiding from constant air strikes nearby. Along with her son, niece, uncle and mother, she lives in one of the most dangerous areas of the city. Sleeping on the cold floor with dozens of other people, sometimes she doesn’t see the sky for days.
“We were heavily shelled. We had nowhere to run, so we went down to the bunker,” she explained. “We’ve been through a lot here – giving birth, taking care of pregnant women, children, and someone with a heart attack.”
The second largest city in Ukraine, Kharkiv is still under attack by the Russian Federation. As the number of dead and injured in this area increases daily, support from the International Organization for Migration (International Organization for Migration)IOM) is being moved in to help people living in shelters that weren’t originally designed to hold people.
In addition to basic needs such as food and medicine, they are desperate for news from their family. Solar lights provided by IOM are helping displaced Ukrainians to charge their mobile phones, helping them to hear the voices of their loved ones again.
Provide aid to a besieged city
In Chernihiv, the capital of the country’s northernmost region, 70% of the city lacked electricity due to infrastructure damage due to heavy shelling between late February and early April. According to the local government, nearly half of the city’s 300,000 remaining inhabitants and hundreds of civilians were killed. Even now, the chaotic shelling puts the lives of people in the area at risk.
“It’s scary to live in the dark, but the worst thing is the lack of communication with loved ones. Olga, an employee of the IOM partner NGO “Ukraine Prism” distributed solar lights and other aid to the worst affected areas.
Olga recalls: “We transported the first batch of solar lights from IOM on rubber boats across the frozen Desna River, along with the most important cargo for Chernihiv residents, when the city was still still besieged.
An unprecedented activity
Since the start of the war, IOM has provided much-needed support to the affected areas of Ukraine, including mattresses, blankets, kitchen and cleaning kits, containers and tools for minor repairs. . Such items are made available through humanitarian supply chains to ensure continued transportation of essential goods such as food, shelter, blankets, medicine and others during times of disaster. .
When war broke out in February, IOM set up a large supply chain operation unprecedented in size and scope, setting up a complex cross-border operation to bring life-saving items to Ukraine’s most conflict-affected regions. These items have been adapted to meet pressing human needs and correspond to the environment in which war-affected communities live.
IOM’s local partner, the “Source of Revival” charity, is doing everything it can to help those who remain in Kharkiv as well as those who live in hard-to-reach cities and villages in the region. Due to shelling, they often travel to provide humanitarian assistance in bulletproof vests and helmets.
Solar lights have become one of the most sought after items. “The lights are a real help for us – we can charge our phones and use them to light up,” says Kateryna, a mother of two.
Over time, humanitarian aid began to reach the local people, assisting them on their way to recovery, but the trauma remained fresh in their minds. Kateryna recalls: “The village suffered a lot. “Air strikes, tanks, artillery… We survived the most terrible moments: executions of civilians, violence and death.”
