Ukraine, the war is in danger of returning to the West: “The bombing of Lviv was a shock to civilians”

Mediterranean Saving Humans is one of the associations that has been active in Ukraine since the beginning of the war with humanitarian aid and specific projects for the civilian population. Since last August in the city of Lviv, the “Med Care for Ukraine” project was launched, thanks to health teams, made up of doctors, nurses and psychologists, who move every 10 days from Italy and with a mobile medical clinic offer a medical assistance base for refugees who have fled the east of the country. The activities of the Italian association take place in institutional refugee camps and informal shelters, distributed in the westernmost city of Ukraine, which has become a kind of city of refuge for all those fleeing the bombings and occupation of the Russian army. the recent bombings that hit the city had a devastating effect. Not only from a material point of view, with the destruction in two days of 4 power stations in the Lviv oblast, but also because of the psychological impact on the population that felt safer than the rest of the country since the beginning of the war. Now fear has invaded the city. Elena Fusar Poli she is the chief of mission of Mediterranea Saving Humans who led the humanitarian column that brought the supply of humanitarian aid and medicines that the Italian association sends to Lviv every month. We contacted her to understand the situation in the city after the bombing.

What was the impact of the bombings in the last few days in Lviv?

We arrive in the city and the first thing we notice is a generalized fear, very different from the climate we have been breathing in recent months. After the bombings of the last few days, the population is scared and in a state of shock, there are people who have told us that they have been in the shelters for up to 5 hours straight. Before, people were used to hearing the air raid alarms, but not everyone went to the shelters, because the alarms hardly corresponded to bombs actually falling on the city. Now the citizens have seen the missiles fly over their heads, they have seen the power plant that powers the city hit hard. The impression we have is that the psychological impact of the attack on the city was even heavier than the essentially war. We speak to those who live here in Lviv and we see them with tears in their eyes, expressions that until now we had seen on the faces of those who came here from Mikolaiv or Kharkiv and found refuge in the city.

Has Lviv become the destination for refugees from the east of the country, as it is today?

Schools are closed and it is not known when they will resume. This is an element that marked us a lot, because it had never happened that classes were suspended without knowing the recovery. The city is still very crowded as usual, all those who fled from the East took refuge here, there is a lot of traffic and public transport has resumed circulation, which after the bombing remained stopped. For 2 days the city was without electricity, water and gas. Now supplies have resumed, but supplies are still provisional. There is a feeling that the blackout could come back at any moment. Work activities continue, and this is one of the contradictory facts of the city, but as the Salesians of Don Bosco in Lviv tell us: “Every small social activity is important, if we give in to paralysis it is over”. There are certainly no conditions for moving safely between city and city, since we arrived in this part of Ukraine since the beginning of the war, it is the period when we feel the greatest danger. We were at the border for 3 hours to enter the country, the controls are thorough and along the roads there is high alert.

What kind of help did you bring to Ukraine?

Our project “Med Care for Ukraine” provides medical care to people housed in refugee camps here in Lviv, so we first brought the medicines that our medical healthcare teams administer to patients. But we also brought warm clothes, blankets, comforters. There is a fact, they hit the city’s energy sources at the beginning of the winter period and that has a notable impact. We brought in power generators, oil stoves and electric stoves and field gas burners for the kitchens of the refugee camps and a supply of clean water. In addition, as always, food and hygiene products that we will distribute in the fields and to our partners, the Insight network and the Dom Bosco centre.

How are the living conditions of the civilian population at the moment?

Undoubtedly they are getting worse, the seven months of war are making themselves felt and, above all, the difficulty of trade relations has caused the increase in the prices of consumer goods and food. Lviv is home to thousands of poor people who have fled other cities, so rising prices have a huge impact on living conditions. We have seen that small self-help groups are forming, families and individuals are coming together to combine what little savings they have left, and a small delegation of one or two people goes to Poland, across the border, to buy necessities. . They pay less in Poland than in Ukraine. The border is about 1.5 hours from Lviv. People organize and take turns shopping on the other side of the border, often on the other side, in Poland, they have a part of the family that has become safe within the European borders.