100 loaves of bread...

...were baked for us to pick up first thing this morning, from a church centre in Letychiv for refugees. A pastor, his wife and other volunteers support 237 families, including 173 children, who are registered (although there are more refugees who aren't registered). And they bake bread - in a huge oven - that they sometimes take as far as the frontline.

Many refugees are from the occupied eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. They survive, somehow, in Letychiv, a town with a population of only 10,000. We feel that they are somehow forgotten, as Letychiv is not well known and doesn't seem to be on the humanitarian aid run path.

We left some tinned and dried food, baby milk formula, candles, sanitary products, new men's socks, and chocolate and trauma teddies for children. (Me in an oversize coat, kindly given because it was raining and I didn't have one.)

There are so many people and organisations who have helped in this aid delivery and the rest of the aid that we're taking to Kherson:
Paczki dla Ukrainy (Parcels for Ukraine)
Старе Місто (Old City) Lviv
Yaroslav, Liudmila and the rest of the team in Ternopil
UK4UA and the Penparcau community in Wales
The Austrian aid charity in the photo below (Organisation for Worldwide Emergency Help)...
...and probably others I've forgotten!
It's amazing just to list them all - mostly small organisations and individuals, all cooperating to make sure humanitarian aid goes directly to where it's needed most.

The bread is packed, in banana boxes, into the van, which is now full again, ready for it's next journey to Kherson -  still at the late planning stage. I have to say that there are only 99 loaves now, as one had to go to qualify control - with butter and honey!

Meanwhile, today, two people were killed and two wounded in a Russian shelling of a refuge for civilians, known as an "Invincibility Point," in the city of Kherson. 

And the death toll from the missile attack yesterday, on a pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk, has risen to twelve, including four children. At least 56 people were injured, some critically.

This evening there was an air raid siren in Odesa at roughly the same time as yesterday's missile attack, and we thought that there may be some diners in restaurants worried - which is the aim of terrorism, of course. However, we don't think many people here will be deterred from living their lives as normally as they can, including eating out in restaurants - that would be letting the terrorists win.


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