After hobbling in pain and fleeing Ukraine, Luba, 80, gets crutches… thanks to YOUR cash
- Luba arrived in Poland after 500-mile journey and has now been given money for food, medicine and crutches
- UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has received £1 million from the Mail Force Appeal
- It has set up cash assistance programme to help Ukrainian refugees
- It is a lifeline for Luba who can use the system for an initial three months
Tears stream down the face of 80-year-old Luba, who never believed she would see the horrors of war again in her lifetime.
‘I was little, it was 1943 when my brother passed away in World War Two, and I never thought that my children would have to go through something like this,’ she said. ‘I want peace and no more war. I don’t want the children crying.’
Moments earlier, Luba had told how she had been stubbornly determined to stay in her home when Vladimir Putin launched his brutal invasion at the end of February.
But when the bombs fell ever closer to her front door, she was forced to flee her village near Kyiv with just a few belongings hurriedly packed into a small sports bag.
Luba arrived in Poland after a gruelling 500-mile journey on a minibus hobbling in pain, hungry and nearly penniless. But she has now been given money to buy food, medicine – and a pair of crutches – thanks to the generosity of Mail on Sunday readers.
Luba arrived in Poland after a gruelling 500-mile journey on a minibus hobbling in pain, hungry and nearly penniless. But she has now been given money to buy food, medicine – and a pair of crutches – thanks to the generosity of Mail on Sunday readers. Pictured: Luba (right) and daughter Larysa (left)
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which has received £1 million from the Mail Force Appeal, has set up a cash assistance programme which has helped thousands of Ukrainian refugees who crossed the border with almost nothing to their name.
It has proved a lifeline for Luba, who is staying with her daughter Larysa, a physio, who lives in a tiny studio apartment in Warsaw after emigrating to Poland 11 years ago.
After a short interview process at the UN’s centre in Warsaw, she was signed up to a cash payments system which will allow her to withdraw 700 zloty (£125) a month for an initial three months.
Andrew Hopkins, chief of the UN team which is rolling out the scheme to 450,000 Ukrainian refugees in Poland, said the cash was an ‘exceptionally efficient’ way of helping those in need, and gives them the dignity of being able to go into a shop and choose what they want.
Poland’s government has said Ukrainian refugees will be eligible for welfare support, but the UN assistance money will help as new arrivals wait for their benefits applications to be processed.
Not that Luba is planning on staying in Poland too long. Larysa said: ‘We’re praying for the war to end so she can return home. She tells me that an old tree can’t be replanted. She has her roots there.’
More than two million Ukrainians have entered Poland since the war broke out. The Mail’s appeal was launched shortly afterwards, and readers have sent in more than 67,500 cheques as well as making online donations.
The Mail Force appeal began with a £500,000 donation from our parent company, DMGT, at the personal request of Lord and Lady Rothermere.
The charity is giving money to aid organisations already helping refugees. Other organisations to have received funds include the Red Cross, Unicef and Care International.
Donations of £250,000 have also been made to the AMAR Foundation and The Halo Trust.
Donations of £250,000 have also been made to the AMAR Foundation and The Halo Trust. Pictured: How to donate to the appeal
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