In response to Ukraine’s request for the evacuation of patients in need of medical care and forced to leave the country due to the war unleashed by Russia, the European Union is coordinating the relevant work, as well as financing the medical aircraft involved in the transportation.
Balazs Ujvari, representative of the European Commission, announced this on Monday in Brussels.
“As the war continues and people continue to leave the country, health care systems in neighboring countries are under significant strain in Poland, Slovakia, Moldova. For the evacuation of patients in need of medical care, Ukraine requested assistance from the EU. In response, the EU coordinated the evacuation of nearly 200 people through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to eleven European countries. The first RESCEU medical evacuation aircraft funded by the EU has been operational since March and is being accepted by Norway, a member state of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism,” he said.
Ujvari also listed the countries that accept Ukrainian patients. These are Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Romania, Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain and Portugal.
Evacuation of people from Ukrainian regions is ongoing, the State Emergency Situations Service said.
“The first convoy of about 20 buses with foreign students has set out in the Sumy region at 9:30 a.m. Three items of hardware and 23 employees of the State Emergency Situations Service are involved. The second convoy to depart at 1 p.m. is now being formed,” the State Emergency Situations Service said on its Telegram channel.
Evacuation of residents of the Irpin city in the Kyiv region to Kyiv is continuing, the service said. According to the service, over 150 people have already been evacuated.
Evacuation buses have departed from Zaporizhzhya to Mariupol, humanitarian cargo is on its way, it said.
Ukraine is in the process of the next stage of evacuation from Afghanistan, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
“The civilian sector of the Kabul airport has stopped working. The private plane, which Ukraine has agreed on, was the last civilian plane that took off from this airport before it closed a few days ago, just on August 23. But the military part of the airport is working, and we are now in stages of the next stage of evacuation, I cannot disclose the details yet, but there will be news soon,” Kuleba said on the air of the Ukraine 24 television channel on Friday.
The foreign minister said the Kabul military airport should also be closed by August 31. According to him, after August 31, the evacuation from Afghanistan will continue, “but it will no longer be necessary to negotiate with the Americans and the British, who currently control the military airport, but directly with the Taliban or those countries that the Taliban define as mediators for this process.”
Kuleba said that now Ukraine does not and cannot have relations with the Taliban, because in most countries of the world this organization is recognized as a terrorist one.
“We do not maintain diplomatic ties with them, but, surely, for the sake of the life and safety of citizens, for example, if there is a Taliban checkpoint in front of the airport, and we need to bring a car with Ukrainian citizens to the airport, then, of course, there are working channels, on which we are resolving these issues with the Taliban. But this in no way testifies to their international recognition,” he said.
Kuleba also recalled that about 90 Ukrainian citizens are awaiting evacuation from Afghanistan.
