ROSTOV-ON-DON, July 11 (RIA Novosti) – Military actions in Ukraine that forced tens of thousands of people to flee from war and sufferings to Russia did not dampen hopes for a happy ending with Russians mobilized to help the neighboring nation.
Despite the ongoing conflict, citizens from all over Russia continue to gather tons of humanitarian aid, while total strangers to the refugees, Russian rescuers and medical workers, are gladly becoming godfathers to children of refugees in the tent camps organized on the border of the Rostov region.
In one of such camps near the city of Novoshakhtinsk, a mobile chapel operates.
“People need not only food but spiritual support too,” Donskoy Archdiocese press secretary Igor Petrovsky said.
Refugees often come to the chapel to light a candle, pray for peace and read ecclesiastical literature. More than 20 people were baptized here recently.
“Back at home we could never find time for it, but if not now, then when?” Nastya, a Slaviansk mother of a 13-year-old said.
“My birthday is on May 26 and we had a boy baptized here whose birthday was on the same day, so it would have been wrong to refuse becoming his godfather,” Sergei, a nurse, said. He has exchanged telephone numbers with the parents of the boy and is looking forward to staying in touch with them.
“We all became relatives here – brothers, sisters, godmothers and fathers,” Natalia, a mother of another recently baptized child said.
Those who are far from the scene and cannot support refugees spiritually help them financially. Humanitarian aid, collected in Rostov region, has reached 980 tons, according to local authorities. Donations come from all over the place, although Rostov’s residents have donated the majority of them.
The Orthodox Church plays a great part in collecting the aid in its parishes.
“We have a warehouse where we gather humanitarian aid from our parishes. There, volunteers and the congregation sort it out and then send them to the temporary settlements and tent camps,” the head of the social department of the Rostov-on-Don diocese Evgeniy Osyak said.
According to him nearly 400 tons of aid, including food, clothes and sanitary products, went through the church’s storage.
“We collect everything that people bring and donate to the organization – from candy to slippers, and then, at the request of rescuers, we bring it to the refugees,” Vera Lobanova, coordinator of the diocese’s social projects, said.
As one of the volunteers working at the storage noted, “helping others is a duty of every man and it should be done selflessly.”
The number of refugees fleeing from southeast Ukraine to Russia has increased dramatically since June as a result of the ongoing Kiev-led special military operation against independence supporters. Several thousand people cross the Ukrainian-Russian border every day, with more than 50 Russian regions hosting the refugees. The majority of them arrive in the Rostov region, where about 30,000 Ukrainian citizens have already been placed.
According to the recent estimates by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), about 110,000 people have fled Ukraine for Russia since the beginning of the crisis.
