The Ukrainian mobilization of the army also impacted 150.000 Hungarians living in Sub-Carpathia, Ukraine, as thousands of men belonging to the Hungarian minority were drafted, and the draft-calls are still coming continuously. The humanitarian catastrophe caused by the war threatens not only the territories affected by the armed conflict, but also the entire Ukraine. The Hungarian Reformed Church Aid (HRCA) keeps on helping. Just this week relief supplies worth millions of Hungarian Forints are being delivered to Sub-Carpathia and to the refugee camps in Eastern Ukraine.

In the eastern part of Ukraine, more than 5 million adults and 1, 7 million children are indirectly affected by the war. The number of deaths and injured exceeds 1000 and almost one million people became homeless. Today, the uncertainty and tension is enormous in the entire Ukraine. The public services are working only periodically, and heath care is waning. Inflation is constantly increasing, so the public servants don’t receive their wages.

HRCA began its Crisis Response Plan in Sub-Carpathia in September of 2014. The HRCA is continuously lending assistance not only to the Hungarians in Sub-Carpathia, but  also to all the needy people living in the region, The project is being implemented in cooperation with the Reformed Church in Sub-Carpathia, and with other regional organizations. Preparing for the anticipated lack of gas supply in Ukraine, the HRCA has delivered furnaces with multiple solid fuel systems to the regions. Basic food, medical equipment, warm clothing, blankets, books, and thousands of Christmas gifts were also distributed by the HRCA to schools and institutions in the last few months.

The HRCA has recently started a new mission in Ukraine. On 11^th February 2015, two-three tonnes of food and sanitation packages, medical consumables, vitamins and other needed equipment will be brought to Sub-Carpathia: to a military hospital in Munkács (Munkachevo), to an orphanage in Tiszakeresztúr (Perekhrestia), and to many families of drafted men, to the Association of Disable People in Beregszász (Bereghovo), and to a Home for Disabled Boys in Nagyszőlős (Vynohradiv). On the 14^th of February the second aid shipment will be followed by a qualified medical group as well, which will offer free comprehensive medical examinations and primary care in two Rehabilitation Centres.

The Hungarian Reformed Church Aid offers aid to those who live in the territories afflicted by the war. With the coordination of the United Nations, (UN,) HRCA is planning to go to eastern Ukraine to two refugee camps, located approximately 50 km away from the battlefields, and take, with the approval of the UN, aid supplies which are worth millions of Hungarian Forints (mostly blankets, sleeping bags, bandages and warm clothes.) 

It is shocking what is happening in Ukraine. We will do our best to help our troubled eastern neighbours, both the Sub-Carpathian Hungarians and also the needy Ukrainians who are living in refugee camps, separated from their families.- said Dániel Osgyán, the CEO of HRCA, who, himself, will be accompanying the trucks of aid which are going to Ukraine.

Read more on the situation in Sub-Carpathia, Ukraine - news, reports, statements, letters of solidarity)

Cover photo: HRCA