In Ukraine there are hidden challenges to be met by humanitarians including the extremely vulnerable victims of the war in Ukraine—the elderly, says Alona, a humanitarian worker with a heart of gold in a world of broken hearts,” reports Melissa Hemingway from Ukraine.
“This war must be stopped so that we can deal with the tens of thousands of vulnerable persons we need to find fast and treat their maladies before they die,” says a nurse practitioner in the southeast of Ukraine.
“I am treating women in eastern Ukraine who are telling me that the seniors in their family cannot evacuate Mariupol because they became too disabled for evacuation from lack of nutritious food and lack of their chronic health maintenance medications,” says Alona in a report to her regional director.
by Sharon Santiago, Micheal John, with files from Melissa Hemingway in Ukraine
Mariupol destruction. Drone photo 25 March 2022. Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
A missive setting out humanitarian needs assessment in Mariupol has been sent to the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).
“There is to be a new city administration in Mariupol, effective Thursday,” reports Melissa Hemingway. RINJ workers quickly forwarded a plea for massive help in evacuating the vulnerable communities from the city, but not knowing what to expect. The humanitarian workers had switched goals from health care to evacuation of women in Ukraine, in early March.
Alona Adamovich who operates the RINJ birthing clinics and women’s shelters in Mariupol for The RINJ Foundation wants an immediate focus on the plight of seniors and their families plus she is also demanding that a complaint under UN Res. 1820 be made to the United Nations about the occurrence of rape of women and children in Mariupol city.
“A local administration of the Donetsk People’s Republic is to be formed in the city of Mariupol,” is a statement published from Donetsk City government as part of the pushback against evacuation, explains Melissa.
File Photo of Leonid Pasechnik of Luhansk People’s Republic and on the right, Denis Pushilin, President of the Donetsk People’s Republic . The latter has formed an administration for the recovery of Mariupol. Photo Credit: Valentin Sprinchak. Photo is cropped. Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
DPR President Pushilin decreed the creation of district administrations in Mariupol, including the appointment of their heads. There have been unconfirmed rumours that increased shipments of humanitarian aid are being prepared in Rostov for delivery to Mariupol and the rumour also suggests that the Russian Federation intends to rebuild Mariupol once the fighting has ended in all sectors of the city. This is unconfirmed talk shared by Ukrainian and Donetsk officials with humanitarian workers, encouraging humanitarians already in the city to remain.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy has said he is ready for face-to-face talks with Vladimir Putin and is ready to negotiate peace and a ceasefire, Zelensky’s press secretary Sergey Nikiforov has maintained for some time. Photo Credit: Ukraine Presidential Press Office. Image is cropped. Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
Ukraine Seniors in bad health hiding scared in basements.
“My evaluations in Mariupol suggest this is a severe crisis issue. Seniors of Mariupol are still here, laying weak and hungry in basements of shelled-out structures that once were their homes,” explains Nurse Practitioner Alona Adamovich who has three times refused offers to evacuate her from Mariupol with her medical workers and patients. “We cannot leave women, kids and seniors behind,” she insists as she helps load another bus and reminds evacuees to take their medicines as per her instructions, reports Melissa.
In a conversation with Emanuel Macron on the 30th of March, Vladimir Putin stressed that in order to resolve the difficult situation in Mariupol, nationalist militants must lay down their arms and allow more tonnage of humanitarian aid to enter the city and be distributed to areas currently involved in urban warfare firefights.
“We are trying to work with all sides including Russians, Chechens, three different Nazi nationalist militias and the Ukraine Army which only has a spotty representation here in Mariupol. The problem is that the Nazis are misogynists and we are all women. They say they only want to “f” us. I call them Nazis because they are all about Adolf Hitler as a military leader and say the Holocaust never happened. Nazis have been killing friends and family in Donbass for many years. I am a nurse practitioner and have worked all over the country. I do not care what the beliefs of a patient might be except when they want to kill me for being a woman or a Jew. I lost family members—my mother says many—in the Holocaust. Don’t say to me it did not happen. We will never get along. We Ukrainians know these Holocaust deniers. They are Nazis, it is true,” says Alona in a taped interview with Melissa Hemingway.
UN Resolution 1820 addressing impunity and identifying perpetrators of sexual violence in conflicts. Image courtesy The RINJ Foundation.
“The Chechens are fearless so they are the ones to take food boxes and medicine to some of the really tough residential areas where the fight with the Azov is severe and they drop off to civilians hunkered down in safe places the Chechens have helped them get to. One Chechen said to me in Russian as he loaded up with supplies delivered by the Russian army from Rostov, “look madam, we all have a grandmother and a mom so we should all be willing to help them,” as he loaded more boxes to his vehicles. He took a selfie with me to show to the people who would get the food and say to them trust this person to help. That was clever. Nobody knows who to trust,” notes Alona Adamovich.
COVID-19 infections have spread among huddled civilians under broken bridges and in bombed buildings where they coexist with Azov Nationalist fighters.
10 Dec 2024 Covid-19 statistics for the Eastern Europe Regions.
Source CSPaC.
Source: Civil Society Partners against COVID-19
Fears of global war escalation still remain as the Hybrid War takes its toll and raised temperatures.
Civil society is urging the parties in the current Ukraine War for a commitment not to use nuclear weapons of any type and to end the eight-year old war in Ukraine with diplomacy instead of weapons. FPM.news is asking readers to sign up, here.
“It is of no use to let the unresolved issues of rights to self determination in the Donbass region continue to fester and produce continued armed conflict as has been the case for eight years since February 2014. These matters need to be resolved calmly with diplomacy and political solutions and not at the point of a gun as has been the case for so long,” says Dale Carter, security director for The RINJ Foundation. She is presently in Kiev working with the NWOB.org and RINJ Women chapters bussing injured women and children or those women and children with chronic health care needs, out of Ukraine to safety and pre-arranged continued health care.
Humanitarians are shouting out the plight of the vulnerable population in Ukraine.
“We learned in Mariupol where Alona Adamovich, a RINJ member and NGO organizer is running women’s basement clinics in the city of Mariupol, Ukraine that seniors are dying because they are not able to get their chronic health care medicines. That’s something we are good at solving based on our medical director Dr. Nassima al Amouri’s experience in Syria’s Idlib governorate and the alliances she has made with partners in the generic pharmaceutical sector. When we move into a new area we hear from new women patients that the seniors in their families are not taking their meds. Same here in Kiev. We get people back on track and on the road out of here, accompanied by a nurse, a mechanic and a bus driver for each 14 people,” explained Ms. Carter, in those precise terms.
“That’s a growing problem in Mariupol, she added. “People are not leaving because they are under the weather because of simple issues like failure to obtain and take prescribed health maintenance regimens like gastrointestinal disease meds and coronary disease medications. Patients become increasingly debilitated and feel unable to do the strenuous efforts needed to evacuate. This is a narrow population segment but not as narrow as people think. We cannot leave anyone behind.”
“Women, kids and seniors must get out of Ukraine,” Ms. Carter added. “That is our focus. We think our greatest contribution is helping the physically challenged and chronically ill members of the vulnerable population regain some strength and leave the country in groups safety shepherded by a health worker. We have sent 53 medical workers out with them already. That means 53 groups of 14. The workers will not come back but go on to Gracie Edwards’ unit in Afghanistan or to Nassima al Amouri’s unit in Syria. The world is in a mess.”
As the words of hatred spread across the world by untrusted leaders, the fear of global nuclear war also spreads.
As the world moves closer to a Nuclear WWIII, women activists are urging the United States and Russia to immediately stop the current Hybrid WWIII which threatens to do more harm to the current existing humanitarian catastrophes in Yemen, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa as well as creating new crises.
“The measures are intended to serve as a deterrent to Russia but run the risk of being only a deterrent to the international business community, while adversely affecting only those vulnerable groups which have nothing to do with the crisis,” said Mr. Idriss Jazairy, the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral sanctions. He made those comments on 28 April 2017.
At the UNSC 9008th meeting Joyce Msuya, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed the UN Security Council (UNSC) on the 29th of March saying, “The global impacts of this war are becoming clearer as each day of this conflict continues,” she said.
“Innocent children, women and men are being killed, injured, displaced and traumatized, while hospitals, homes and schools are being destroyed,” the UNSC heard on Tuesday.
But the angry talk of war continues.