Dozens and dozens of boxes with solidarity material donated by individuals for the Ukrainian town of Rivne (200 kilometers from the border with Poland) continue to wait at the San Antonio school to be picked up to reach a destination that has not escaped the fierceness of war. In Rivne on March 15, Russian troops demolished the communications tower, a bombardment in which 20 people died.
Last Tuesday, the organizer of this solidarity campaign, the Ukrainian resident of Cáceres, Krystina Mykulyak, together with several volunteers, waited unsuccessfully for the arrival of a truck that was to collect all these boxes and set off for Ukraine. Now the indications suggest that the organizers of this solidarity campaign could have been victims of a scam by a false transport company, as indicated by some sources in their environment. Mykulyak had been waiting for several days for the arrival of that truck sent by the authorities of Rivne, the hometown of this woman. The day before, she herself had sent fuel money to the alleged driver of this ghost truck.
Through mobile messages, the man informed him of his location, justifying his delay in the current situation with the truckers’ strike and the collapse of the roads. On Monday night, the day he was going to arrive, he told her that he was 140 kilometers away and that he had left Malaga. “We were happy because we already saw that we could make the shipment,” explains this woman, swamped by frustration at not having been able to complete her plans for the time being.
The initial idea was that the truck would arrive directly from the town of Rivne to Cáceres driven by soldiers, but the impossibility of locating people who could carry out this transportation made the Rivne City Council look for a logistics company, explains Krystina. The last message from the driver came around three in the afternoon on Tuesday, when she told him that she was 15 minutes from Cáceres. He never arrived and prevented contact with him, blocking this woman on WhatsApp.
The matter, indicates the 39-year-old Ukrainian, married to a man from Cáceres and mother of two children, is already in the hands of the national police of her country. Being the City Council of her town the one in charge of processing the transport order, a complaint has not been made in Spain, and for the moment it is not planned to formalize it. This newspaper has consulted sources from the National Police and they indicate that, although it is an international matter, it is also possible to file a complaint at the Cáceres police station, which could investigate the case and, if necessary, communicate it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. . It is not even clear that the person Krystina contacted ever set foot on Spanish soil.
Collaborators
In addition to the collaboration of all the individuals who have made their contributions and the San Antonio school itself, this woman has had the help of the Health Brotherhood. This newspaper has been able to see a document that the brotherhood had prepared, in which they recorded the campaign to collect goods carried out and the delivery that was to take place on March 21. In that document you can even see the name of the alleged driver, his ID number and his driving license and the make and model of his vehicle.
This newspaper has also been able to see a supposedly official form in which there are details about the shipment and where it can be read that it had to arrive in the city of Rivne. This paper has supposedly official signatures. One of which can be read is that of the city president, Artur Nowakowski.
Neither from the San Antonio school nor from the Health brotherhood do they want to make any reading about the facts and they are sure that the articles collected will have a solidarity purpose. They show their absolute trust in the promoter of the initiative.
don’t throw in the towel
Krystina Mykulyak is also optimistic in this sense, who does not want to deviate from her initial objective, which is that the solidarity material can reach her city, within Ukraine. She does not rule out, if she does not succeed, delivering these packages to the associations that are already making shipments to the border with Ukraine.
As he recounted in a report published in this newspaper at the beginning of his campaign, he has a good part of his family in his country, including his father, who is his direct contact in the organization of this solidarity collection.
It started with two collaborating establishments, the Cáceres el Viejo department store and another, the Transilvania food store of Romanian origin on Antonio Hurtado street. Krystina begs for forgiveness, but she hopes that her goal can soon be fulfilled.
www.hoy.es
Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.