Caritas Ukraine is prepared to serve an influx of refugees from the country’s eastern regions should Russia launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine, says Anna Dombrovska, CNEWA’s project manager for Ukraine, in an article published in Toronto’s Catholic Register on 4 February.
Caritas Ukraine workers are “trained to go to the field, create field kitchens or field tents where they can help people with humanitarian aid, medical help or psychological consultation and definitely spiritual (consultation) of course,” Ms. Dombrovska told the newspaper.
“When there’s a question of whether Ukraine is prepared, well, Ukraine has been prepared since 2014,” she continues. “The country has been mobilized for eight years. It’s not that the war ended and now it may start again. The war has been there for so long.”
Caritas Ukraine, with its 1,000 staff and volunteers throughout the country, is CNEWA’s main partner in Ukraine. Caritas staff are also posted along the contact line between Ukrainian forces and Russian and Russian-backed forces in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk offering humanitarian aid as needed.