Rene Laumann's childhood dream of being a professional pilot didn't come true, but flying became his hobby and is now part of a humanitarian mission.
After Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Laumann began flying small planes on three-and-a-half-hour trips to Poland to provide medical aid to war victims and transport refugees with special needs to Germany.
More than 4.6 million people have fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries since Moscow launched what it calls a “special operation”, the biggest attack on a European state since 1945. More than half of them have gone to Poland, according to United Nations data.
Laumann, 35, is among a group of amateur German pilots who formed the Ukrainian air rescue, a humanitarian initiative that uses its planes. Five of them regularly fly between the German city of Mainz, near Frankfurt, and Rzeszow in Poland.
“We have already made 20 flights and we carry around 20 people,” Silke Hammer, spokesperson for the group, said in an interview. “Today we took a patient with a stroke to Cologne.”
Pilots carry medical supplies for cancer patients, first-aid kits for bone fractures, and medicines that need refrigeration, such as insulin.
At Rzeszow Airport, pilots take Ukrainian refugees with special needs to an airport near the German city of Bonn for further support.
“These are passengers who cannot be easily transported by land because they have serious health problems. Some of them are probably children,” Laumann said.
On the other hand, it is estimated that within Ukraine there are about twelve million people in humanitarian need, of whom only 2.1 million have received the required care. The UN has redoubled its call for economic financing of some $1.1 billion, of which around 64 per cent has been collected so far.
Despite the fact that Moscow announced the withdrawal of its troops several days ago, fighting has now intensified in areas of southern and eastern Ukraine. In addition, Russian troops have left behind them thousands of square kilometres — some 300,000, almost half of Ukrainian territory — strewn with mines.
By Erol Dogrudogan and Timm Reichert (Reuters)
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