Old bulletproof vests, which men and women bought in their day to try avoid death by gunshot of an ETA terrorist. Some are more than ten years old, the technical period of validity, but their effectiveness has been approved in the best possible way: shooting them. And yes, they protect. It is defense material that can at this time be useful on the urban fronts of Ukraine devastated by Vladimir Putin. And it occurred to an ertzaina who works in Gipuzkoa, who has Ukrainian friends and who does not want his name to be publicized.
The idea is simple: the old vests in the possession of the Basque police officers, for the Ukraine.
The agents of the Basque police union SiPE have begun with the word of mouth collection. His plan is to collect the load on a bus, take it to the point in Poland closest to the war, and take advantage of the fact that he has left with a vehicle suitable for passengers to bring a human load, a refugee passage to Euskadi. .
And it may be more than one bus, if the idea that the ertzaina had last night succeeds Juan Carlos Saenzspokesperson and union leader, to extend the invitation to donate vests to national police officers and agents of other security forces throughout Spain.
In the case of the ertzainas it is simpler, because their possession of the vests comes from an old union struggle. At the beginning, when they demanded a provision of bulletproof protections and they did not obtain it, the agents themselves bought them, obtaining help from the Department of the Interior of the Basque government. But these veteran teams are theirs, many bought at the time from the Fedur firm and suitable for the NATO STANAG 2920 classification. “They are ours,” says Sáenz, and now they are going to give them away to the Ukrainian combatants.
a lot of pallets
There are other large-scale police officers solidarity operation. organizes it the NGO Solidarity Civil Guards. It involves sending medical supplies, food, clothing and other aid items to the civilian population.
The organization is collecting donations from individuals in Granada, Armilla, Alicante, Santa Pola, Torrevieja, Benejúzar, Orihuela and Guardamar. They started this campaign by lending a hand to a parish community of Ukrainians who he was busy packing vegetables in cardboard boxes. pasta, preserves… Now they have enough for five mega trailers, trucks capable of carrying up to 66 cargo pallets.
And that is what they are doing, palletizing, packing and carefully writing down what each package carries. “There are many aid trucks that have departed from various points and They get stuck on the road because they don’t have the documentation right. It’s normal: among so many aid shipments there are those who can sneak drugs or weapons, that’s why it’s best to keep everything in order…”, the civil guard points out with police meticulousness Jose Francisco Cabreradelegate of the Unified Association of Civil Guards and founder and coordinator of this NGO.
Solidarity Civil Guards was born in 1999. It was founded by José Francisco after an illness took away his little son forever, and “to get out of the hole I was in.” bill. She met other children in her first aid operation, in Kosovo; a group of barefoot sons of war, stepping on the snow with their little feet. He couldn’t leave it anymore.
At that premiere, the NGO obtained so much aid material that it had to be put into a Russian Tupolev chartered by Defense to be able to take it to the scene of the tragedy. “I set out to collect help, and I saw myself with a lot of tons…”, explains Cabrera. Later, the solidarity organization of the guards has been in Haiti, in the Philippines, in Nepal, in different scenarios of adversity. There are already 480 associates, and not all of them are civil guards: there are firefighters, housewives … They are on their way to half a million kilos of distributed aid.
Now they are ready to make a trip to Krakow. Six guards, two from Logroño, one from Motril, one from Alicante and Cabrera from Granada, will participate in the convoy, giving the trucks a private escort. They will also require help from the French gendarmerie and the German police to have a smooth journey.
The trucks are refrigerated, so they are going to put 4,000 kilos of fresh fruit and milk cartons. “It’s the basics to feed people in a war,” explains Cabrera. Among the things they will carry there are surgical material, drugs to stop bleeding, braces and tools to repair broken bones. Experience has advised him: it is war. “In three days we planted in Poland, because we are going at the pace of a truck,” explains Cabrera. They have named this campaign “Operation Trizub”. That’s what it’s called, trizub, the Viking air trident that is the shield of Ukraine.
Trucks on the road
Other policemen are committed to helping, these in a more discreet way, it would even seem confidential, because they have not yet informed their bosses. They have seen loading, for example, on Sunday the 27th in the empty streets of an industrial estate in the East of Madrid, Barcelona road ahead. One Sunday, no one working and middle-aged people loading a 10,000 kilo truck. It has been the patrol car stopping, getting out to ask the men who lift more or less well-packaged cardboard boxes into the vehicle.
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“What load is this?”, they have inquired. “Help for Ukraine”, they have answered with a Russian accent the dockers. In other words: legumes, milk-free chocolate, tetrabriks, noodles, compotes, polar fleeces, hats, gloves, paracetamol, bandages, disinfectants, small stuffed animals for children… “Do you have much left?” And the cops have come to help. Twenty minutes can be wasted on patrol lending a hand. Some boxes weigh little, despite their volume: those of diapers, those of tea… Others weigh more: those of silicone thermos flasks or camping stoves.
In a while one of the countless shipments of small trucks to Poland’s border with hell. In this case, with a Polish truck driver, he carries the load for free. In other parts, a driver paid to the neck for a neighborhood, a small Ukraine of immigrants lacerated by what they have been watching on television this tragic week.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.