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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2021 | Volume 35 No. 15
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TO UKRAINE, WITH HELP
Ian Matheson of Kamloops has been on the ground in the war-torn region since March 23 and intends to stay as long as he can lend a hand to those impacted by Russia’s invasion Volunteers gather at a refugee centre driver pick-up site in Poland. IAN MATHESON PHOTO
MICHAEL POTESTIO
STAFF REPORTER
michael@kamloopsthisweek.com
A
Kamloops man has travelled to Poland and Ukraine, where he is now helping deliver supplies and assist refugees fleeing the wartorn country. Millions of Ukrainians have fled their country since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, an assault that has left cities bombed, thousands dead and a massive humanitarian crisis amid the carnage. Ian Matheson, 36, has been on the ground since March 23, stationed in Poland near the town of Przemysl, which is located near the border with Ukraine — a little more than 100 kilometres from Lviv in Western Ukraine. Matheson, who has lived in Kamloops for much of his life, travelled to Poland to help out and has been networking with other volunteers and agencies to help refugees crossing the border, provide those fleeing with food and water and drive them to refugee
Lawns
centres throughout Poland. Speaking to KTW via instant messaging apps, Matheson detailed some of his experiences during the past three weeks, having most recently connected with a group of other Canadian volunteers, with whom he purchased a van to deliver medical supplies into
Gardens dens
Planters Planter
Ukraine and ferry refugees out. Since he arrived, Matheson said he has made nine trips from Poland into Ukraine — five by foot and three by car — including a trip into Lviv, which is the farthest he has travelled into the war-ravaged country. He plans to visit Lviv again
this week, as well as the capital of Kyiv, from where Russian troops withdrew just a week ago, as the fighting has now shifted to Eastern Ukraine, where there are contested Russian enclaves. For his first Lviv trip on April 5, Matheson said he spent a few hundred Canadian dollars on
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medical gear in Przemysl and dropped off the supplies at a reception centre in Lviv that is being used for medical stockpiling for frontline soldiers and to create camouflage netting. Lviv didn’t feel like a war zone, Matheson said, noting he heard air raid sirens twice, but no reaction was elicited from those around him. “Lviv is a paradoxical place to be as it’s a normal city with no overt signs of [a] war zone,” Matheson said. He added, however, there is a feeling of a war under that apparent calm, and examples of it around the town. At the reception centre Matheson visited, women were weaving fabric into camouflage netting. Around the city’s perimeter, he has seen stockpiles of Molotov cocktails. “It’s a little depressing seeing them have to resort to that,” Matheson said. See JOURNEY, A16
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