Ukraine violence hits home as sides negotiate truce.
Community planning response to political violence in Kyiv
Ukrainian-Canadian Lidia Nykyforuk has been turning to her Catholic faith to make sense of what’s happening in Ukraine, where at least 26 people have been killed this week during antigovernment protests.
“We pray here every day for God’s help,” she said Wednesday.
The political upheaval in Kyiv has provoked a strong reaction from Edmonton’s Ukrainian community. More than 144,615 people living in Edmonton are of Ukrainian descent, according to Statistics Canada numbers from 2006.
St. Vladimir the Great Parish has been holding vigils at 7 p.m. for the past three weeks, giving the Ukrainian community a chance to connect and pray.
Nykyforuk said the international community needs to put pressure on Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych for restraint.
“He’s a dictator. His hands (are) in blood.”
Edmonton’s Ukrainian community has held rallies in Churchill Square in November and December. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress Edmonton branch president Luba Feduschak said something is now being planned in response to the recent violence.
“I can’t say if it’s going to be a rally, I can’t say it’s going to be a protest or a vigil, but we are meeting to try to get something organized and visible so the Edmonton community as a whole is aware of what’s going on over there,” she said.
The meeting is planned for Friday, to see what the congress can do and “see which way the community is going to go with this tragedy,” Feduschak said.
“Many of us have family back there,” Feduschak said.
“There’s a whole wave of new Canadians that came after 1991, which was the year of independence in Ukraine. They came over as young 24, 25, 30 year olds to find a better life here and they left all their families back there.”
“(Yanukovych) doesn’t want an election. He wants to kill the people.”
LIDIA NYKYFORUK
Feduschak said her family in Ukraine is OK.
“We haven’t heard any bad things from them, so we are assuming and praying that they are OK, and that their children and grandchildren are OK,” she said.
Nykyforuk said the situation is “the last straw” for Ukrainians.
The protesters “were there to exercise their rights, their constitutional rights to say no, they wanted a general election. That’s it. But (Yanukovych) doesn’t want an election. He wants to kill the people,” she said.
“It’s very important that all the international community … know the truth.”