Race against time
HUMANITARIAN group Gift of the Givers says it is working against time to get supplies into Ukraine because routes into and out of the country have been closing quickly after its invasion by Russia.
Imtiaz Sooliman, the organisation’s founder, said the group was buying supplies in Ukraine to support the local economy. The goods were then transported to areas where they were most needed.
Sooliman said the disaster relief group was already distributing food and other basic necessities in Ukraine, with the help of a Ukrainian woman married to a South African man.
The woman had gone to Ukraine and decided to stay and assist, he said. Her husband remained in South Africa and was the language link between the two countries.
He said Ukrainians were exiting the big cities and going to smaller towns in search of food, clothing, diapers and other items that were in low supply.
Gift of the Givers was also looking for supplies in Hungary and would send medical goods from South Africa to Ukraine.
However, it would not send any medical personnel to help in that country, Sooliman said.
“We need our medical teams in South Africa. So many doctors died because of Covid,” he said.
At least 1 000 health-care workers had died during the pandemic, he said.
Currently, the organisation’s medical teams, which supported at least 210 hospitals over the past two years, were helping with surgical backlogs.
Meanwhile, students from South Africa and other countries on the continent are reluctant to return home despite the war, Sooliman said.
“Most students don’t want to come back, they want to stay there and hope that another university will be able to accommodate them,” he said.
However, if Europe could not assist the students, they would have to go home and return at a later stage because it was too costly to take care of them indefinitely given the exchange rates, he said.