Today the trucks with food sets have left Dnepropetrovsk for Mariupol under Rinat Akhmetov’s humanitarian aid drive. Overall, the initiative will deliver 55,000 humanitarian aid packages to the most vulnerable in Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts early this week. Tonight volunteers will pack the food sets in Mariupol distribution centre and send them to the localities facing the hardest humanitarian situation.   

The Humanitarian Centre will bring most of the packages to Donetsk where 41% of residents need food, as shown by a humanitarian needs map developed for Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts. The rest of food sets will be delivered to Dokuchayevsk, Starobeshevo, Snezhnoye, Komsomolskoye, Mironovka (Donetsk Oblast) and to Rovenky and Krasnodon (Lugansk Oblast). The map indicates that 40-50% of respondents living in these towns need food. The most vulnerable do not receive social payments and cannot afford even the goods available on sale. 

The Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Centre will leave a part of the humanitarian aid in Mariupol to help the displaced. According to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, over 15,000 IDPs are registered in the town today.

Along with the traditional oil, cereals, canned food, flour, sugar, biscuits and condensed milk, 55,000 Mariupol-meant food kits will contain instant cereals. The Centre used to deliver instant food to Donetsk residents only. Now it will be included in all humanitarian aid packages to make sure that people have something to eat if electricity or gas supply is cut off. 

Overall, the Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Centre has delivered more than 800,000 humanitarian aid packages for the most vulnerable and displaced people in the region, including the elderly, the disabled and seriously ill, foster homes and large families. Rinat Akhmetov has set an objective to deliver at least 1,000,000 food sets by the end of 2014. 

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The Humanitarian Centre “Aid+Help” of Rinat Akhmetov Foundation has four key missions: evacuating people from the war zone; accommodating the internally displaced people; supplying the humanitarian and medical aid; and rendering targeted help.

You can contact the Humanitarian Centre at a toll-free multichannel hotline 0 800 50 9001 and athelpdonbass@fdu.org.ua.