Ukrainian refugees grateful for warm welcome in Italy

ROME – As Russia and Ukraine mark 50 days of war, Ukrainian refugees currently being hosted in Italy have voiced gratitude for the welcome and aid they received immediately after fleeing their residences adhering to the outbreak of the conflict.

Speaking at an April 14 press conference organized by the Sant’Egidio Local community to mark the 50th working day of the war in Ukraine, a guy termed Feodosiy, 44, who fled Kyiv with his loved ones, reported his finest fear the moment the war started was “for my kids and for my place, and for my pals.”

“They are waging this war with things that are previous. We are in the 21st century, nonetheless we see war like it was in a diverse period,” he stated.

Feodosiy, who is one particular of the 91,000 Ukrainian refugees being hosted in Italy, the bulk of whom are keeping with family members or persons, stated he has been to Italy on many events, “but this time I felt a ton of solidarity, a great deal of welcome, a very good ambiance, and a large amount of treatment.”

Likewise, Yulia, who also fled from Kyiv with her household and is being hosted in Italy with the help of Sant’Egidio, explained they ended up welcomed “with fantastic really like by the group.”

“To me it looks that everybody who arrived from Ukraine is shocked, they are agitated, they can not recognize what the long term will be for their relatives, for their little ones, but minimal by tiny listed here with this welcome we can aspiration a little bit,” she said.

Yulia claimed lots of moms and even grandmothers are now taking Italian language classes, and their children have been enrolled in college once more and are now creating new good friends.

“We have an understanding of that we are by now dwelling some thing wonderful for us, due to the fact to live with bombs, when the bombs slide on your head, it is not achievable. With these sirens, when the small children are frightened and are unable to sleep. But in this article we are quiet we can stay like everyone else,” she said.

She voiced gratitude to Sant’Egidio for the support it has offered, and to the quite a few households and persons who are serving to the approximately 4.4 million refugees who have fled considering the fact that the starting of the war. So far, an estimated 4.7 million have still left Ukraine and roughly 7.1 million have been internally displaced as a final result of the war, which commenced with Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

Mass destruction of vital infrastructure has been performed to various Ukrainian metropolitan areas, when thousands, mostly civilians, have been killed in the conflict. Allegations of war crimes, together with torture and rape, have also emerged in villages liberated from Russian occupation.

Speaking at Thursday’s press conference, Marco Impagliazzo, the president of Sant’Egidio, stated 50 days of war is an critical landmark, “because inside of of these 50 times there is the suffering of a people today, there are lots of tens of millions of refugees, there are thousands of deaths, individuals who dropped everything. There is a great deal, and a good deal of violence.”

On the other hand, as a motion dedicated mostly to spots of social justice, Sant’Egidio’s main aim is on the humanitarian entrance, Impagliazzo reported, noting that the community has centers and companions throughout Ukraine and Europe who are providing significantly-necessary guidance to Ukraine’s besieged populations.

He also voiced assistance for Pope Francis’s Palm Sunday appeal for an “Easter truce” to the war in Ukraine.

In Ukraine, Easter is celebrated on two unique times: the first will be this Sunday, April 17, which marks the Latin Catholic Easter, and the second will be April 24, when the Byzantine and Orthodox communities observe Easter.

“This is incredibly important, to know that there is a week of truce, from 1 Easter to an additional. A truce that wants to help you save the blood of civilians, of girls and kids, who are dying, as we see, in the hundreds,” Impagliazzo mentioned.

Among those people most at possibility, he explained, are the elderly, “who are dying since they simply cannot transfer or are blocked in establishments mainly because they are no for a longer period self-adequate, they never have any additional relatives, or they really don’t have the capability to go absent as hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have completed.”

Troopers at situations go without the need of food and drinking water, and those people who are sick are also tragically impacted extra than most, he said, because they are presently weak and entry to considerably-required medicines has been designed more and more tricky.

Impagliazzo stated close to 100 folks in need to have of dialysis have presently arrived in Italy with the enable of Sant’Egidio for remedy.

The group, he claimed, has now despatched all around 75,000 deals of medications and sanitary resources in response to particular requests, from medicine for thyroid diseases to insulin for the remedy of diabetes.

Other medicines, this sort of as disinfectants and anesthetics for surgical procedures are also desperately essential, he said, “because there are a good deal of people who are wounded” by ongoing bomb and missile assaults.

“A ceasefire is required as before long as probable,” Impagliazzo said. “We know that to arrive at peace right after so substantially hatred, so considerably violence, and immediately after so much blood spilled because of to the Russian aggression is complicated, but it ought to be attempted in every way to end the war.”

“We hope, we are working, and praying, that the war finishes as before long as doable, and we can start out talking of reconstruction and of the return of Ukrainians to their place,” he stated.

Jurij Lifanse, who is in cost of Sant’Egidio in Ukraine, joined the push meeting by means of a video call. Like several some others, Lifanse is from Kyiv but fled at the time the war started. He is now in Lviv, around Ukraine’s border with Poland, functioning a massive distribution middle for the humanitarian support arriving to Ukraine from Sant’Egidio.

“Unfortunately, there is no scarcity of requirements. Medicines are perhaps the most urgent, mainly because owing to the war, numerous logistical avenues have been destroyed for health-related goods to arrive in Ukraine, but also to be moved inside Ukraine, and they are incredibly needed,” he claimed.

Having said that, “peace is what is genuinely lacking,” Lifanse reported, lamenting the countless numbers who have presently died, among the Ukrainians and also Russians.

“The aggression is not ending, and metropolitan areas continue to be blocked, like Mariupol, wherever it is pretty much extremely hard to send aid, and exactly where the people today continue on to dwell underground, typically blocked, since their buildings are ruined, so the folks are blocked underground, and they have to have a truce,” he mentioned.

Persons arrive to the Lviv centre from all about Ukraine, he stated, recalling the tale of a person youthful man who escaped the besieged town of Mariupol by swimming for two several hours in around-frozen waters of the Tahanroz’ka Gulf of the Azov Sea right until he arrived at safety.

“Thank God he is athletic and could do it,” Lifanse stated, but pointed out that space in a lot of towns, including, Lviv is working out.

In Lviv on your own, the populace has greater by 30 per cent since the war began, he reported, and most folks have not been compensated in the 50 days considering that the war began, so, area, food stuff, medications, and resources are running out.

At optimum danger are the aged, “because they are previously vulnerable, and currently being in a further city, … they need to have accompaniment, and significantly a lot more medicines,” he claimed.

“Then there are the youngsters, who really do not go to university. There are people who glance for function. The aid can support, but what is definitely desired is to celebrate Easter with out the alarms, to be able to be serene, to take care of things, and rethink lifetime,” he explained.

Lifanse echoed the enchantment for an Easter truce, expressing just one 7 days could possibly not seem to be like a lengthy time, but it “can conserve countless numbers of lives, simply because it enables people to go away and to discover other shelter for civilians who are blocked in these towns.”

“Fifty days are as well quite a few, we will have to increasingly check with for peace in Ukraine and that the shooting stops, that people today are helped to receive what arrives from the environment,” he reported.

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