Terrorism

There are no words to adequately express our anger and sadness at this morning's terrorist attack by Russia on the previously peaceful city of Vinnytsia in western Ukraine, where the death toll is at least 23, including 3 children. There have been countless other acts of terrorism, if not genocide, in this war and no doubt there will be many more. Vinnytsia is only different in being hundreds of miles from any front line - in fact our train passed through it on the way to Odesa.

We know when this attack happened because, being in western Ukraine, we had an air raid siren here in Lviv. We were on our way to the MAD office, prior to our usual Thursday afternoon English lesson for children (Bob) and information-giving on options for a safe haven in the UK, Ireland and Canada (me). Today I happened to talk to older people, via our translator, a GP and refugee aged 58, male, and therefore cannot leave Ukraine, only 2 years from retirement (60 years in Ukraine). We spoke to a couple - a retired psychiatrist and a nurse from the Kharkiv area, and a single woman in her 70s from the Donetsk region - all living in the awful conditions of the refugee centre and with nothing left.

Two questions were asked of us today, one by a friend: "Do you want to stay?"
The straight answer is yes, at least until the middle of August, and the longer answer comes from another question,  asked by the couple mentioned above: "Will you still be here next month?" The implication was that we probably wouldn't be and the reality is that there is no-one else in that refugee centre from another country but us. Which matters to people.

On Sunday we'll hopefully be meeting a family, here in  Lviv, who will have made another leg of their journey from the constantly bombed city of Kharkiv, eventually to a host family in East Lancashire. They are being driven at each stage by a MAD Foundation volunteer driver and, when they get to the Ukraine-Poland border, they will be walked over to further transport that will take them to Krakow airport. We didn't even know this family before last week, but they knew us, through a friend we have already settled, and they managed to get in touch. That matters too.

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