Weapons of destruction attacks against civilians and infrastructure, together with the absence of adequate and continuous humanitarian corridors, make the conflict in Ukraine a serious humanitarian emergency now within Europe.
(To Vincent Gaglione) On February 24, 2022, with an invasion by the Russian armed forces, preceded indeed already in the first months of 2021 by a gradual grouping of troops and periodic operational exercises at the border, and the conflict in Ukraine dramatically broke out.
Days before, by means of a public statement, Vladimir Putin it had in fact annexed some territories beyond the Russian border, formally recognizing the People's Republics of Donetck and Lugansk which in the meantime had proclaimed themselves sovereign, while still insisting in the Donbass region, that is, within the Ukrainian nation.
Already since 2014, Russian and Ukrainian troops faced each other in a conflict which, although defined as "low intensity", over the years had caused over 14.000 deaths and tens of thousands of injured, also greatly encouraging a migratory phenomenon.
On February 21, 2022, Russia therefore sent its armed troops to the two new countries, clearly violating the Budapest Memorandum of 5 December 1994, an international agreement by which Ukraine agreed not to proliferate nuclear weapons and to deliver 1900 nuclear warheads to the neighboring power for their disposal over the next two years, in exchange for guarantees from Russia itself, but also from the United States and the United Kingdom, and later also by China and France, regarding its security, independence and territorial integrity.
Throughout the past year, the Russian media on several occasions had announced an imminent invasion of Ukraine, but they were always denied by the authoritative media.
With a short video message, then, Vladimir Putin ex abrupto communicated the military attack on Ukraine and since that day the cities continue to be bombed, civilians die plentifully while the negotiations, started after the outbreak of the conflict, are far from reaching a decisive outcome and the health emergency is taking on proportions unimagined. If it is true that President Putin claims those territories by declaring that he wants to protect Russian ethnic minorities living in Ukraine, on the other hand it must be reiterated that the territorial borders of a nation do not depend on the internal presence of a different population, because otherwise many countries would be at war. it's Italy (in primis), for example, with reference to the predominantly German-speaking South Tyrolean territories, on the border with Austria.
In any case, any disputes over the annexation or transfer of territories between sovereign countries must be resolved with the prescribed diplomatic procedures and never with armed aggression that causes the death of thousands of defenseless people and the destruction of civil goods and assets. cultural.
It should also be remembered that after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, over 25 million people of Russian ethnicity and language continued to live in the 14 dissolved former Soviet Republics, in territory beyond the Russian territories, so, with the same logic geopolitics declared by Putin, Russia would be entitled, so to speak, to invade other nations located on its border.
Moreover, the Ukrainian language, which has survived years of Soviet dissuasion and periodic prohibition of authority, is very similar to Russian, although it also has Slavic roots, it is confirmed that it is used as the first language by 67% of the population, while the Russian language is used by the residual 29%, although all Ukrainians know it well.
The Ukrainians' bond with their land is visceral, maternal. There are those who have never left and those who have returned in the darkest hour, because the Earth is like their mother and this is the moment in which she must be protected and loved, not left alone. Depending on where you are, life changes a lot. The areas most affected by the Russians are obviously a separate reality: being and nothing viper to paraphrase Jean Paul Sartre.
Tragic is the finding that, according to the statistics "Human Development Index", Ukraine was already the poorest country in Europe and the 74th in the world, despite the fact that during the Tsarist era it was known as"the Granary of EuropeAnd with its population of 41 million inhabitants, at least until the loss of Crimea and the Donbass, it turned out to be the eighth most populous country in the world.
At the moment, however, Ukraine is not yet a NATO ally, although it could solicit its decision to join the Atlantic pact and the EU precisely to face the current serious war situation, causing it to achieve a defensive armed reaction- collective on its territory, pursuant to the well-known Article 5 of the Treaty.
The danger of a far more serious international conflict would then be just around the corner, with more than 3 million refugees already fled to other countries and millions of people internally displaced.
La International Red Cross andUN Refugee Agency they report daily on the dramatic conditions in which civilians and among them the most fragile categories such as women, children and the elderly, are forced to survive the continuous attacks.
Even more than 10 million people are forced to remain in the hardest hit areas within the country and are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and protection because basic services, such as electricity and transport, have been suppressed and basic necessities such as food, water, and medicine are lacking .
According to international humanitarian law, civilians should never suffer the effects of an armed conflict and compliance with the rules for their protection and protection is invoked by all international organizations, with formal complaints that the borders remain open to allow for escape. and asylum outside the Ukrainian territories, continuously and indiscriminately bombed.
By way of example, it should be noted that from the railway station of the city of Odessa alone, every day, between 600 and 800 people pass by fleeing towards the regions of western Ukraine.
In the east of the region, humanitarian conditions are even more emergency, with more than 200.000 people without water in the Donetsk region, and 80% of the urban territories completely destroyed in Luhansk, and almost 100.000 families without homes and without electricity.
In this frightening scenario, it should be noted that women and minors who represent 90% of civilians fleeing Ukraine to neighboring countries, mostly passing through Poland from which they also move to Italy.
Ukraine is closer to us than the distance between Trieste and Palermo.
The risk that these vulnerable categories could fall victim to very serious cross-border criminal phenomena, such as trafficking in human beings, sexual and labor abuse and exploitation in various ways, including and above all of minors, is concrete and likely.
In this regard, we unfortunately already know the dramatic reports of those fleeing other conflicts, passing through the desert of sub-Saharan Africa towards the horrors of Libya.
The Agency UNHCR sent to Ukraine, but also to Poland, Moldova, Hungary e Romania of the team coordinators of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation protection activities (PSEA), as well as protection experts against gender-based violence and crimes against minors, planning a logistic link between all actors in the field of humanitarian protection and national authorities for the purpose to guarantee a valid and effective response.
In the aftermath of the start of hostilities, to stem the announced drama of civilians involved in the conflict, UNHCR and UNICEF have set up the so-called "blue dots"(Blue points) in six Nations (Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) as well as other European countries have immediately given wide availability, setting up neutral and safe spaces for the distribution of essential goods and protection services to minors, families and other fragile categories, facilitating the effective response of personal needs and thus homogenizing the offer of the various partners involved.
"blue dots"Are essential for an emergency assistance strategy and represent an effective form of cooperation, even between different sectors such as the purely civil one, made up of NGOs and other institutional entities, and the foreign armed forces, often sent to the theater of conflict in operations of peace supporting.
So the NGO, International Red Cross, all the institutional structures involved and not, collaborate to alleviate the suffering of the most exposed in a war context: we continue to create and manage assistance centers, humanitarian transport, a widespread distribution of basic necessities in first aid points, primary goods necessity thus keeping humanitarian needs under control in the vicinity of Ukrainian border crossing points, where thousands of refugees gather and transit.
In tragic contingencies such as the present one, as well as in war contexts that have gripped the international geopolitical landscape for years, all of humanity must not get lost but on the contrary must reclaim itself, gathering around those who need it most.