Two years since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, fighting is still going on causing new victims and new destruction.
Let us not forget the great suffering millions of Ukrainians have been experiencing, a situation that is deteriorating day by day. Over 5 million IDPs are estimated while humanitarian aid is dwindling.
Sant'Egidio has been present in the country for thirty years with Communities of Ukrainians. Even though they share suffering, fears, and hardships of the entire population, they have set up an extensive network of humanitarian assistance. In two years about 370,000 people have been reached even in the southern and eastern regions most affected by the war actions. All this has been made possible thanks to a chain of solidarity from Italy and other European countries that cannot be interrupted as long as the conflict lasts.
127 loads of humanitarian aid have so far arrived from Italy and various European countries in the coordination centre of Sant'Egidio's humanitarian initiatives in Lviv, amounting to 2,000 tonnes, a total value of over 23 million euro. Food, clothing, blankets, personal hygiene products, but also medicines and medical supplies. Sant'Egidio has sent medicines, including life-saving ones, from Lviv to 209 health facilities, 90 local administrations, 54 institutes for children, the elderly and the disabled even in the most remote areas of the country. An estimated 2 million people have benefited from these health supplies.
Ukraine so desperately needs peace. Solidarity keeps hope alive, when everything around us speaks of death. Broad and generous support is needed to nourish it. Two years since the outbreak of war, we do not want to forget Ukraine. We are firmly convinced that providing humanitarian aid is to work for peace and future.
