The Ukrainian community of Paraná is willing to provide humanitarian aid to refugees from the eastern European country invaded by Russia Thursday (24)
In Prudentópolis, just over 200 km from Curitiba, in Campos Gerais, residents offered their own house to receive fugitives from the war. The municipality has about 75% of the population of 57,200 inhabitants of Ukrainian origin and in 2022 it will be 131 years since the arrival of immigrants. After the Russian invasion, residents of Prudentópolis held an act of support for the invaded country on Thursday, in which the descendants sang the national anthem of Ukraine and prayed for the nation of their ancestors.
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Merchant Edgar Belo, 60, is one of the volunteers to receive refugees in his own home. “If I could, I would be there in Ukraine fighting alongside the people. But I can help in another way, opening the door of my house to families there who need a shelter”, says Belo, who says he is able to receive up to ten people. at your residence. “The language and habits won’t be a problem. I first learned Ukrainian at home and it wasn’t until I was 9 years old, at school, that I started to speak Portuguese. , who is from the fifth generation of the family in Brazil.
Since 2019, when he found part of the family that still lives in Ukraine, Belo has been in contact with relatives in Pitkmin, a village in western Ukraine. The city is close to Chernobyl, where in 1986 there was the most serious nuclear accident in history, when the reactor at the VI Lenin Plant exploded and which was taken over by Russian troops on Thursday.
Over the phone, Belo offered shelter to his Ukrainian cousin with whom he talks constantly. “But he said he’s going to stay and fight. He was fired from work and said he was going to report for the fight,” says Belo. On the first day of fighting, President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the population to resist the Russian attack and offered weapons to any citizen who wanted to join Ukrainian forces.
The prefecture of Prudentópolis itself was also willing to provide humanitarian aid if Brazil receives refugees. Mayor Osnei Stadler sent a letter offering help to the city hall of Ternópil, sister city of Prudentópolis, from whose region almost all the immigrants in the municipality came. “Prudentópolis continues with its doors and heart open to the Ukrainian people, as it did more than a hundred years ago, when it received the first immigrants who built their history here and directly influenced the way of life of our land”, wrote Stadler in Ukrainian to the Mayor of Ternopil, Serhij Nadal.
Another resident of Prudentópolis willing to receive refugees is municipal worker Oksana Jadvizak, 35 years old. She lived in Lviv, one of Ukraine’s biggest cities, for six years, where she studied history in college.
Oksana participated in the protests that deposed the then pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, in the Ukrainian Revolution, in 2014. In response to the demonstrations, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the annexation of the Crimean peninsula, which until then belonged to Ukraine. In one of the protests that Oksana participated in in the capital Kiev, there was a violent response from the police, with about 100 people killed, including a teacher from a resident of Prudentópolis.
“I called my friends in Ukraine offering shelter here in Prudentópolis. They thanked him, but said they will fight until the end for the country”, says the municipal servant who even translated into Ukrainian the aid letter sent by Prutentópolis to Ternóbil . “In such a situation, we, descendants, cannot abandon a Ukrainian who needs support”, reinforces Oksana.
Brazilian government
The Ukrainian-Brazilian Central Representation is already in contact with deputies and senators in Brasília to convince the federal government to provide humanitarian aid to refugees from the conflict in Eastern Europe. Among the wanted parliamentarians, a good part are from Paraná, which is home to about 80% of the 600,000 immigrants and descendants of Ukrainians in Brazil. Among them, senators Oriovisto Guimarães (Podemos) and Álvaro Dias (Podemos), in addition to deputies Gustavo Fruet (PDT), Rubens Buenos (Citizenship) and the government leader in the Chamber Ricardo Barros (PP).
“This movement has no partisan color. And not only Prudentópolis, but also other cities in Paraná and the country, I’m sure they are willing to help, if Brazil comes to receive refugees”, says the president of the Representation, the lawyer from Curitiba, Vitório Sorotiuk.
“However, I believe that the largest movement of refugees will be to Europe itself, due to its proximity, in addition to Canada and the United States, which have two of the largest colonies of Ukrainians in the world”, evaluates Sorotiuk. Brazil has the fourth largest community of Ukrainian descendants, behind only Russia, Canada and the United States.
The president of the Ukrainian Society in Brazil, Felipe Oresten, from Curitiba, confirms that the descendants in Paraná are willing to help the Ukrainian population. But as everything is still very recent, the community here has not yet organized itself to receive refugees or even send aid to Ukraine. “We are willing to help. At this moment, we want a position from the Brazilian government so that it remains on the same path of sanctions on Russia from other countries that support Ukraine”, says Orsten.
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