“The number of workers today in Ukraine is roughly half our strength three months ago,” explains Geraldine Frisque, spokesperson for the Civil Society Organization including its subsidiary units including The Nurses Without Borders.
We are a private organization and the drain on our resources by the crisis in Gaza and in Syria as well as other locations has stretched our organization to its limits.
Generally, there has been a decline in the interest for donating goods and cash to the Ukraine projects and hence, as we find that a facility does not have the resources it needs, we must close that location and take up the daily visits at the nearest location. We have been doing that throughout 2023. Now we are again ahead of the changes in events and are prepared to meet current needs but from fewer locations but with better transportation options.
While we have drastically reduced our number of service locations in Ukraine, the need reflected in the number of patients per day has also dropped for a number of reasons, at a number of locations. We estimate the deaths to be well over a million in the Donbass regions across all sides in the conflict. There are at least 55 combatants including the NATO member nations with personnel on the ground.
Millions of Ukrainian women and children have left their country.
Additionally, our board of directors has said that we must refuse to carry a humanitarian load for nations like the USA and Israel which are accused of crimes against humanity and genocide. As we have seen from the number of American troops in Ukraine, seen every single day, this is an American war against Russia using the excuse of preventing the ethnic Russians in Donbass from breaking away from Ukraine which they did on their own accord back in 2014 about two years after The RINJ Foundation opened its first chapter in Ukraine.
The process of pulling out some resources in Ukraine has involved a long project of training local volunteers to do the work of midwifery; running birthing clinics; providing care for rape survivors; conducting HIV and other STD tests and medical responses and running women’s shelters.
This is a downsizing, not a withdrawal
“In the process of bringing in senior medical professionals from other countries to train locals, we got a little bit of a surprise as a number of women wanted to stay having bonded with members of the local communities and progressing well in learning the Ukrainian and Russian languages. Those bonds must not be broken as they are built on caring and sharing, love in other words, and there is no better caring facility than that,” explains Ms. Frisque.
Women and girls in the midst of the Ukraine crisis face severe risks to their safety, dignity and well-being. Rape is causing the spread of HIV/AIDS like a wildfire. Soldiers are raping the same infected girl over and over. HIV & HBV coinfections are common in Ukraine. RINJ Women and The Nurses Without Borders provide essential disease testing and also life-saving reproductive health care and physical safety in war zones. Women’s care is otherwise forgotten by government institutions. Ukraine’s services for women & girls critical to their health, future & survival, are eroded by war. War-time rape consequences including disease spread can be devastating to long-term health and immediately life threatening. RINJ Women are in Ukraine, helping Ukrainians, with your support.
Warning to women globally.
Men coming home from Ukraine may be infected with HIV/Hepatitis.
RINJ Women provide specialized care for women & children in active Ukraine War Zones with your help.
Donate to help Ukrainians.
Video: Infants and moms hiding with volunteer care providers from the artillery shells, bombs and missiles during an attack in spring 2022.
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