Christian World Service has opened an appeal to enable New Zealand churches to support refugees at the Ukrainian border.

Since 27 February, staff from Christian World Service’s ACT Alliance* partner Hungarian Interchurch Aid (HiA) have been operating a 24-hour refugee support point on the Ukrainian side of the Hungary-Ukraine border at Beregsurány. 

By last week, HiA had shipped 28 tons of canned food, flour, sugar, oil, rice, pasta, biscuits, long-life milk, tea and hygiene products to the refugee support centres in Beregszász and Uzhhorod ready to distribute to families forced to flee their homes due to the war. 

Hungarian Interchurch Aid has worked on humanitarian and development projects in Ukraine for more than 25 years, and right now is being joined by local volunteers as they care for people arriving in the kilometres-long line of refugees trying to cross into Hungary. UNHCR reports that 660,000 people have already fled Ukraine and many more are on their way.  The United Nations is predicting that up to 6 million people will soon be in need of humanitarian assistance as they flee Ukraine.

The HiA refugee support point also provides a heated pavilion for refugees to rest in at Asztély, near the border crossing. Over the coming days they will supplement the pavilion with additional tents and mobile toilets.

For now, Hungarian Interchurch Aid are providing food, blankets and basic hygiene items for refugees – including many elderly people and children who have been waiting long hours in bitterly cold weather as they try to get across the border.

Donations to support Ukraine can be forwarded through Christian World Service via the Ukraine Crisis Appeal page.

Donations made through CWS are tax deductible in New Zealand.

*The ACT Alliance is the global aid and development network of church and ecumenical agencies known as ‘Action of Churches Together (ACT) Alliance’. Both Christian World Service and Hungarian Interchurch Aid are ACT Alliance members.