“My family in Ukraine is safe… for now”

Sviatoslava Turchynets is one of the Ukrainian nationals who live and work in the Faroes.

She was born and raised in the western Ukraine city of Chernivtsi, which has a population just short of 300,000.

“The older people in my family fled from the city to a village 40 km away as soon as they could,” she explains.

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“The younger ones stayed on, preparing to defend with all their might.”

Air raid sirens have been heard frequently in Chernivtsi, but the village where her older family members are staying with a local priest has, as of yesterday, not been bombed.

Slava Turchynets og Høgni Árting Danielsen, Ukraina

Caption: 

Sviatoslava and her husband with bags of clothes and other items for Ukrainian refugees in Poland

Help for refugees

A new Faroese Facebook group is organising refugee aid for Ukrainians. ‘Hjálp til Ukraina‘ was created shortly after the first attacks by Russia and has amassed more than 3,300 members at the time of reporting.

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Co-organiser Annika Klein says she is overwhelmed by the support.

“We already have enough to fill several full-size transport containers, which we will be shipping to Poland soon,” she said yesterday.

“We have received thousands of bags with a wide variety of useful items – clothes, toys, blankets, mobile chargers, sanitary products, etc. If there is anything we perhaps have a shortage of, it is duvets and sleeping bags.”

storage_space.jpg

Caption: 

'Hjálp til Ukraina' says it is running out of storage space for donations. Photo: 'Hjálp til Ukraina'

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The text in the Facebook group is mostly in Faroese, but any posts written in English will be easily understood by everyone.

It should, however, be noted that the group posted last night that they cannot take in more items at the moment.

help_ukraine_cropped.jpg

Caption: 

Money donations sent to the number above will go to Polish humanitarian aid services. Photo: 'Hjálp til Ukraina'

Sviatoslava says she is eternally grateful for this effort.

“It is wonderful to see this massive support from the Faroese public. I thank you all.”

Read the Faroese versions of this article here and here.

Translated by prosa.fo.

More Faroese News in English.