President’s envoy for conflict settlement in eastern Ukraine: 330 tons of Ukrainian humanitarian aid will be sent to Donetsk and Luhansk regions on January 22

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Kyiv, 19 January 2015. Ukrainian authorities are gathering a second part of the humanitarian relief to social services on the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas. Columns with the humanitarian aid will be sent on the Ukrainian Unity Day, January 22. Iryna Gerashenko, MP and the President’s envoy for conflict settlement in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and Serhiy Bochkovskiy, Head of Ukraine’s Emergency Services, told this during the press-briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

The most vulnerable social strata – children with special needs, patients of mental hospitals, sick and the elderly – are still in a desperate need for help. According to Ms. Gerashenko, local authorities will soon start redistributing humanitarian aid delivered from Kazakhstan on January 9. “Terrorists do not not merely violate the ceasefire regime; they started a terror campaign against the local population. The information about killed and wounded civilians, women and children among them, confirms the grave nature of the situation,” Iryna Gerashenko said.

The new batch of Ukrainian aid will be delivered in three columns, and it is going to include vegetables, cereals, tin-food, sugar, sweets and biscuits. “The first column of eight trucks departs from Pavlograd and goes to Kramatorsk. Other nine cars will travel from Kharkiv to Kramatorsk. Finally, the third column will be also sent from Kharkiv and deliver the humanitarian aid to Severodonetsk,” Colonel Bochkovskiy said.

Furthermore, Col. Bochkovsky told that Ukrainian authorities successfully completed the construction of module settlements for IDPs. The Government of Germany presented these settlements as part of its support program for Ukraine. The first temporary settlement will be opened in Kharkiv on January 22, and six more are scheduled to open their doors for the residents of Donbas who left their homes due to the military conflict in eastern Ukraine.