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Ukrainian peacemakers in Iraq passed humanitarian aids to local schools and hospitals

Photo courtesy of the Defense Ministry’s Press Service A HELPING HAND

On December 26, 45 tons of humanitarian aids, collected on the initiative of the president of Ukraine and leaders of the Ukrainian military, was delivered to the Iraqi Republic by an Il-86 plane belonging to the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Passing the aids over to its addressees was commissioned to the Fifth Detached Motorized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, part of the multinational Center-South Division, whose mission is to keep the peace and stability in Wasit province. The humanitarian cargo included, in part, forty blackboards, 230 lockers, several thousands of pens and felt-tips, 600 desks, 1200 chairs, as well as many medicines.

Before distributing the humanitarian aid, the peacekeepers closely studied the need for it in schools and medical institutions. The furniture, stationery, and medicines were delivered to the poorest schools and hospitals in Al Kut, Es-Suwair, Al-Muvafakia, Al-Haya, Ez-Zubadia, Al-Azizia, Badra, and En-Numania. Today Iraq’s schools and medical institutions are badly in need of humanitarian aid. The hospitals gladly received the medicine. It is the cold season now, the doctors said, and they lack medication for patients with colds. While centralized supplies are is virtually non-existent, poor people have no money to buy medicine. It is worth notice that almost all medicine the Ukrainian military delivered to the hospitals were produced in Ukraine and their shelf-life was 2006-2008. This is an important factor, since in many hospitals they told us that they have received medicines before from respected international organizations, but they were overdue and could do harm to the patients instead of healing them.

School furniture and stationery from Ukraine for Iraq schoolchildren also were a pleasant and useful gift. During the war, many educational institutions were ruined or looted. Thus, today many schools are in a difficult situation. They have to use one old table for four or five pupils and write on improvised blackboards. Now many of them have received real school furniture. Almost every time Ukrainian trucks with humanitarian aids drove into a schoolyard, crowds of schoolchildren tried to unload the valuable gifts from Ukraine themselves. They clang to the desks and chairs like sparrows and started fighting over who was to carry these treasures to the classrooms.

Every humanitarian aid delivery required from Ukrainian peacekeepers proper preparation, equipping a special armed escort, and reliable guards. This is a requirement of the time; there still are terrorists groups in the country trying to destabilize the situation and keep Iraq in the state of war. However, every Ukrainian soldier knew that desks and medicine are no less needed by the locals than fuel, energy, and money.

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