January, 27 – February 3, 2024

Fastiv, 27.01-3.02.2024

Praised be Jesus Christ!

This week, volunteers and I visited Siversk in the Donetsk region. This is not the first humanitarian mission to this city. I have been to various places not far from where hostilities are taking place, but in this city, where the line of fire is 9 km away, the smell of gunpowder is felt everywhere: in the air, on the roads, in the tired faces of passers-by. The city, which had 11,000 inhabitants in 2021, is now practically destroyed. Local residents say there are about 800 people left, mostly living in basements. Due to shelling and lack of communication, people are isolated from each other – they cannot move between basement rooms.

From April 2022, people do not have electricity, water is brought to the city in barrels, there is a lack of basic, ordinary, simple things. First of all, we wanted to deliver to the city the medicines that we received at the request of the hospital – they are sedatives, antispasmodics, pain relievers, blood pressure medicines, hepatoprotectives, means to improve digestion, ear drops, anti-inflammatories, tablets for sore throat, medicines for angina pectoris, for heartburn, poisoning, sorbents, in total, more than 562 packages of medicines were purchased and brought to the city.

Among those who remained, in my opinion, there are many people of retirement age, most of them women, very few men. When asked why they remain under constant shelling in very difficult conditions, they mostly answer that they have nowhere to go, that they are at home here. Many people have relatives who are very old, in most cases such persons cannot be transported. There were no children or young women to be seen. We purchased two generators for this humanitarian mission. We have also supported our Defenders. The “Paleolithic” community from the Dominican pastoral service in Poznań brought candles and flashlights a few weeks ago, thank you very much.

Rats and mice are bothering people, so we also took away some poison and everything needed to make their daily life a little easier. It is difficult to describe the suffering of these people and their situation, although there were smiles and hugs, in the market I noticed a man who, under constant fire, sat almost alone and sold tangerines, sausage and eggs. His figure was something like a window to the ordinary world that you long for so much, the ordinary simple things amidst the nonsense of this war. A meeting of eyes with persons with whom you see for the first time: – Will you return? – So we will come again. – We will wait for you. Such meetings give hope that these people in Siversk are not alone, that someone remembers and cares about them.

This week, we delivered humanitarian aid to Kharkiv and Chernihiv and sent targeted aid to IDPs across Ukraine. Thank you for the support of the Humanitarna Nova poshta company, which paid for the shipment. A total of 2,390 food kits (20,100 kg of humanitarian aid) were distributed this week.

I would like to thank the community of secular Dominicans in Zwolle, brother Peter and Frans van der Heijdt, and all the parishioners who care about humanitarian missions. Your support is very important to us, especially now that the road we have to travel has become a little longer, when we have to deal with daily difficulties and not stop on the way. Thank you to our friend and volunteer Mr. Ireneusz Gajlun, who accompanies his courageous wife Agnieszka, who is raising 4 children, in our humanitarian missions, thank you for your kind and compassionate heart. Thanks to the volunteers and everyone who cares. We are asking you to help close the collection for 150 tourniquets. 36,780 UAH is not enough, we are grateful to everyone even for the smallest donation. Have a peaceful week.

With prayer

Fr. Mykhailo Romaniv OP