A cry for help from the Ukrainian town of Cherson

We all heard the news, read or saw the images about the liberation of the Ukrainian town of Cherson. We were on our way to Moldova with a group of Jewish refugees when the news reached us.

Problems in Cherson
The fact that Cherson has been liberated is, of course, good news. But now it also brings to light the reality of conditions in the city. Once Cherson was a large city with about three hundred thousand inhabitants. No one knows how many residents remain. Lately, the city was completely cut off from the outside world. There was no Internet and the cellular network was not available. So no one knew what was happening to the inhabitants of Cherson.

The city’s infrastructure was also been deliberately destroyed and the city is now practically without water supply, electricity and heating. We fear that this will not be repaired and solved in the near future. You can probably imagine that a humanitarian disaster is imminent.

Cry for help
Meanwhile, we received a cry for help from the Jewish community of Cherson, asking us to help with food parcels as soon as possible. We obviously want to respond to this immediately, however at the moment it is very difficult to enter the city. Cherson has been under siege for eight months and is not completely liberated yet. A part of the city is located on the other side of the River Dnepr where the Russians have now retreated. There are also many mines buried in and around the city, which makes entering the city not without danger.

In order to enter the city and bring food parcels, you need to have the necessary permits and official documents. Therefore, we are now trying to get our paper work ready, so we can ride along with an aid convoy and bring a large batch of food parcels to the remaining Jewish community, which consists mostly of the elderly.

Although we have not yet obtained the necessary documents, we did not rest. We have started packing the food parcels in advance and will then bring them to the city of Odessa. When we get the green light, the parcels can be taken more quickly to Cherson.

-Click on the photos to enlarge-

Jewish community
In the meantime, there has been contact with the Jewish community in Cherson. They told us that it has been an anxious time, as the town was completely cut off from the outside world. The inhabitants of the town have no idea how their families are doing, if they are still alive and where they are. Similarly, no one had any idea what was happening with the inhabitants of Cherson. Fortunately, this situation now came to an end, but sadly there is no end yet to the problems.

The priority now is to provide the food supplies to the Jewish community of Cherson as quickly as possible. Of course we cannot solve all the problems, but when this cry for help from Cherson reached us, we wanted to respond to it as soon as possible. We will also check if people want to be evacuated and leave for Israel.

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