The third shipment of 215 wheelchairs for Ukraine departed Tokyo port for Hamburg, Germany, on May 31. This all-Japan project, lauched by Japanese journalists, Mr. and Mrs. Kimura, living in London, has been promoted by three organizations donating wheelchairs and marine companies and transport companies.
The report says 215 units, including 10 walkers, reached the FFU warehouse in Kyiv on July 19, and were unloaded safely. It also says the wheelchairs from our NGO were bound with yellow tape.
According to Mr. Kimura, the wheelchairs were delivered to Lysychansk Municipal Authority, Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine. However, Luhansk Oblast, where Lishchanshik is located, is currently under Russian military occupation, and citizens and city employees of Lishchanshik have been evacuated to Kharkiv and Donetsk Oblasts.
By mid-August, all the wheelchairs and walkers were delivered to hospitals and institutions in the northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv and eastern Donetsk Oblasts. These areas are where many displaced people from Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, which is currently occupied by Russian forces, are living. It was in 2014 that pro-Russian militants attacked homes in Luhansk Oblast. This has forced huge numbers of residents to flee their homes and become internally displaced persons.
These reports were sent to Mr. Kimura by Karina, the wheelchair project director of Future for Ukraine Foundation (FFU), which receives wheelchairs in Ukraine, and Mr. Kimura translated them into Japanese. The report(all is written in Japanese) is from here.
We are grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Kimura for going to Ukraine during the war and reporting on the situation of the wheelchairs sent by this All Japan Project.
September 13, 2023 Secretariat
== Wheelchairs in Ukraine (received with this report) ==
(How to see the photos) Click on the photos to enlarge them and view them consecutively.
They arrived at the FFU warehouse in Kyiv and were safely unloaded. They are wrapped with plastic packing material and yellow tape indicating that our NGO did the work, and one of them marked “2023-UKR-067”. All 215 wheelchairs were stored in this warehouse.
It seems the wheelchairs are being transshipped from the FFU warehouse in Kyiv to automobiles for delivery to hospitals and facilities in the northeastern Ukrainian oblast of Halkiu and eastern Donetsk.