Desperate Ukrainians risk Russian shelling in food queues

On a morning hot enough to curdle the milk in Ukraine’s second-largest city, a few dozen hopefuls fend off wasps while queuing to get their hands on food aid.

They take a risk of congregating outdoors in Kharkiv where they may be attacked by Russian artillery fire, but it’s the hours of waiting that worries them, not the danger.

“People don’t think about what could happen because they just want their food,” says Maxim Gridasov, 45, a government volunteer, while distributing packages in the Nemyshlyansky district.

“Even if grenades are falling nearby, nobody leaves. They are waiting for their food.”

The military notices in the local media about the places where aid is distributed always contain the warning: “Please do not form queues, this can be dangerous.”

Russia has been relentlessly beating Ukraine since the start of its invasion in February, killing thousands of civilians going about their business.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) put the civilian count at 5,237 in its latest update last week.

Shortly after AFP’s visit, Nemyshlyansky was bombed by allegedly Soviet S-300 rockets.

Ominously, the targets included at least one food line: 14 people were killed by Russian forces in March while waiting to collect bread in the northern city of Chernihiv.

Moscow says it only picks targets with military value, accuses Kyiv of orchestrating or orchestrating the incidents, and sometimes claims that Ukraine uses locals as “human shields.”

Despite the dangers, around 40 people waited for food packages from the Hub Vokzal charity in Merefa – a one-horse town that would have been in the Kharkiv metropolitan area when jobs were plentiful.

Train driver Vitaliy Znaichenko, 38, clutches a plastic bag containing rice, bread, ravioli, onions and cereal as he exits the distribution center.

“It was difficult at the beginning when the shops were closed or there was nothing left because of the war. But now we’re kind of used to it,” he says.

It’s his first visit here in two months and he’d rather not be in a large crowd and risk being attacked from above – but feels he has no choice.

“I have to live somehow. I have to work at a train station, which is also risky,” he says.

Regional governor Oleg Synegubov told AFP artillery fire was still a constant threat in cities with active military operations in the countryside outside Kharkiv.

The region bordering Russia is agriculturally rich, but many of its factories were destroyed or relocated by shelling.

Locals are twice victims of war, traumatized by Europe’s most devastating conflict in decades and impoverished by the loss of their household’s only income.

Hub Vokzal has provided 900 tons of food, diapers, building materials and other humanitarian aid to around 30,000 families in the towns and villages of the Kharkiv region.

Founder Mykola Blagovestov told AFP he and his helpers have come under shell fire several times while collecting or distributing food.

“We still do it, we go and do our work because psychologically it’s much better to do the work and talk to people than to sit at home anxious,” he says.

Perhaps the best-known food aid organization working in Kharkiv, World Food Kitchen, has also seen its freight trains and farming partners hit by rockets.

As Russian troops withdrew from Kyiv and the focus shifted to the battle for the East, the organization set up by celebrity chef Jose Andres began delivering more than 10,000 meals a day to the city’s hungry citizens.

One of its partner restaurants in Kharkiv, Yaposhka, was destroyed by a rocket blast in April, leaving four employees hospitalized with burns.

The organization has teamed up with a restaurant called 4.5.0. in which businessman Ahmed Hassan, 45, oversees almost every practical aspect of food aid.

The amiable Egyptian told AFP during a tour of his sprawling facilities — which employs 120 workers in the kitchen — that he’s seen near misses while picking up groceries and still worries about airstrikes.

“I think it’s quieter now, but I don’t know. The news says it’s not quiet,” he said.

“I think it’s now a problem around Kharkiv, not in Kharkiv itself.”