EFE / La Paz
The Medfund Foundation in Bolivia started a fundraising campaign to buy medical supplies that will take a group of paramedical volunteers to Ukraine and thus help those injured as a result of the Russian invasion of that country.
Andrés Kittelson, the director of Medfund, a non-profit organization, told Efe that a group of five to seven paramedic volunteers will travel to Ukraine with their own resources to help the wounded in combat sites.
“They’re going to do paramedic work in combat zones and they’re going to go assisting gunshot wounds, bomb blasts and civilians, also soldiers and assisting in combat zones,” Kittelson said.
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The group of volunteers, mostly Americans and Bolivians, will leave for Ukraine on March 26 and plan to stay there for two weeks to help people on the front lines.
To do this, Medfund is running a campaign through social networks so that people can contribute to a bank account. “The money will be used to buy supplies such as gauze, tourniquets, bullet wound patches, among others,” Kittelson said.
So far they have collected 2,000 dollars, although they have the expectation of reaching 5,000.
This is the second aid group to go to Ukraine supported by Medfund, as the first one arrived at the site a week ago. This new set of paramedics is already preparing to travel and return to the country in about two weeks, but they plan to return to Ukraine with more help and probably stay “indefinitely”.
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In addition, Kittelson added, there is a possibility that a third group of volunteers will come in April to offer their help.
Two weeks after Russia launched a large-scale military operation to invade Ukraine, it is estimated that more than 2.5 million Ukrainians have been displaced, mainly to Poland and Hungary.
Until March 7, it had been documented that 474 people had died in the attacks, including 29 children, and at least 861 had been injured, according to a count by the United Nations Office for Human Rights. However, it is believed that the real figures of injuries and deaths could be higher.
