New Year in the "gray zone"

Volunteers collect gifts for children who live in the combat area

Gray zones ... So the line of contact, neutral territory, the gap between the warring sides are called in the Donbass. This is not a narrow strip of land, but many kilometers, dozens of villages and about 50 thousand people living there from the very beginning of the war.

The front -line villages of Kominternovo, Shirokino, Popasnaya, 6/7 many times passed from hand to hand. The surviving houses can be counted there on the fingers. You can only dream about eating normal food, sleep without shots, wash yourself with hot water. Neither light nor gas - nothing. But in three years they are already used to living like that.

Since the fall of 2014, almost the only volunteers who reached these abandoned and dangerous places were “angels”, the humanitarian battalion “Angel”. In those days, they could be mistaken for fighters of the “DPR” (camouflage, machine guns), but this is a false impression. They are not militias and not a military formation at all. On their account is more than ten thousand civilians evacuated from under the fire. And many tons of help delivered, the means for which they collect in social networks.

Says Alexei Smirnov, head of the Humanitarian Group "Angel".

Alexey Smirnov

Head of the Humanitarian Group "Angel"

- It is impossible to evacuate people from gray areas. We are simply not able to provide so much transport and housing. Many have no elementary documents, they burned in shelling and fires. And I will not take responsibility to take young children to a clean field. To save five or ten people is quite real, and we do it. But no one will provide housing for everyone - neither in the DPR, nor in Russia. And in Ukraine, as far as I know, too.

We regularly bring them food and medicines, and on the New Year we collect gifts for children. Last winter, in Staromikhailovka, they had to be distributed under fire. There are single mothers and large families, how can you leave them? No humanitarian convoys reach there, no one needs these people.

In the village of Golma, this is one of the most sheated areas of Gorlovka, the third year Ilya Grigoryevich lives with five children. Their house survived by a miracle: the shell broke the wall, ruined the stove in the kitchen and rolled up under the table without exploding. The glasses flying away from close breaks, they have changed several times. It is rarely possible to buy new clothes, and set the New Year's table from the category of the impossible.

We ask everyone who wants and can help children from gray areas to bring gifts to the Moscow warehouse of the Angel group at ul. School 23. Or call +79851985915

The priority of children's New Year's sets, personal hygiene items, long -term storage products, baby food, diapers and medicines. Children are very waiting for gifts and will be glad to any manifestation of attention. I want the New Year to really become a holiday for them.

Gift collection will last until December 15.