People in Northwest helping with Ukraine humanitarian crisis

People in the Northwest and around the world are responding to the humanitarian crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The United Nations says after just ten days, there are 1.7 million Ukrainian refugees.

Now safe with her sister in Seattle, Daria Bakay still can’t quite believe the invasion actually happened.

“How can you imagine that you’re living in a European city and there would be bombs coming from the sky?”

When the bombing began, she first took refuge in the basement of her apartment building in Kyiv.

Hours later, she got in the car and drove west, enduring heavy traffic and gas shortages.

Her trip to America took six days.

“You don’t feel it, you don’t feel the tiredness or the hunger, it’s terrifying,” Bakay said.

She’s well connected in Kyiv and, along with her sister, is now raising money through GoFundMe for grassroots efforts like delivering food to elderly shut-ins and buying helmets for men preparing to fight.

“I’m just trying to help, I’m coordinating a lot,” she said.

The humanitarian crisis is growing by the day.

“Truly it is a desperate situation for many of those people,” said Stephen Edwards of World Vision.

The Federal Way-based aid organization has teams working in as many as four camps on the Romanian border where there are about 80,000 refugees.

World Vision is also sending supplies into Western Ukraine.

“The scope of the crisis is extremely large,” Edwards said.

How can people help?

“To put it simply, donate. Donate to our organization or to organizations like ours,” Edwards said.

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