Meeting with Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Vostok SOS has evacuated 1,979 people with limited mobility from the frontline areas. Evacuation is followed by the next stage — accommodation. People with reduced mobility and persons with disabilities need care in specialized institutions, most of which are already full.

The issue of accommodation and preparation for the winter season was discussed at a meeting with Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories. The meeting was held in the city of Dnipro.

“We must unite and help those who will have a hard time getting through this winter. First of all, the most vulnerable – people with limited mobility, lonely pensioners. The regions cannot cope on their own, because there is nowhere to move tens of thousands of people who cannot take care of themselves. We see a solution in placing them in hospital places that are not filled today,” said Iryna Vereshchuk.

Yaroslav Kornienko, the evacuation coordinator in Dnipro from Vostok SOS, was present at the meeting. Currently, our team is actively working on creating an additional shelter for people with reduced mobility and elderly people who do not have accommodation options in other cities of Ukraine or abroad. The situation worsened due to the mandatory evacuation of residents of Donetsk region and evacuation from Nikopol.

The main problem at the moment is to find a decent place for people to live. The Vostok SOS team and the United Humanitarian Hub in Dnipro are now actively looking for it.