On a bracing cold day in March, four people set out from the Ukrainian capital Kiev to deliver life-saving medicines, heating appliances and food to the besieged residents of Chernihiv, in the northeast.
Only one survived.
During a brief stop en route, the convoy was hit by Russian shelling. Two of the four people died instantly. A third was pelted by fragments and died half an hour later. The survivor was a man who got out of the vans to relieve himself.
Among the dead: 21-year-old Aanastasiia Tagirova, who had planned to go to Chernihiv to reunite with her boyfriend, and her cat.
The fateful trip, on March 30, was organized by 100% Life, a large non-profit organization helping Ukrainians living with HIV. It was not the group’s first mission to Chernihiv, nor will it be the last.
Undeterred, the organization’s staff and volunteers have continued to make trips to Chernihiv, learning to be nimble and unobtrusive to Russian eyes. So far, they have supplied enough drugs to treat the 1,800 people in Chernihiv who are known to be living with HIV, although an unknown number may have fled the city or died.
Such public health groups go to extraordinary lengths to help their compatriots and preserve Ukraine’s hard-won progress against HIV, tuberculosis and other scourges. Although they have always worked to save lives, since the invasion the purpose has changed.
“Struggle and fight for life is our principle,” Dmytro Sherembei, who heads 100% Life, said through a translator in a recent interview. “We must always be ready to fight for life in all circumstances and under all circumstances.”
Experts have warned that wars almost always lead to public health crises. Pathogens find easy targets among large groups huddled together in basements and refugee camps, children who miss routine vaccinations and patients who lose access to medicines.
Interruptions in HIV and TB treatment can produce versions of the pathogens that are resistant to the drugs. Ukraine and its neighbors are already the global epicenter of drug-resistant tuberculosis.
On March 25, 100% Life volunteers loaded two vans with half a ton of drugs — including liquid formulations of HIV treatments for children — clothing and food. The only bridge to Chernihiv had been destroyed by bombing, so they drove the vans to the banks of the Dnipro River, transferred the load to a boat and unloaded it on the other side. They returned with 34 people fleeing Chernihiv.
On their second trip, on March 30, volunteers again loaded two minivans with food and medicine, this time heating devices to freeze residents. They were accompanied by three vans from an evangelical church hoping to evacuate some of their members from Chernihiv.
The shelling burned four of the vans and partially destroyed the fifth. Mr. Sherembei said three people from the church group had been taken to a hospital, but he did not know their fate.
“The Russians bombed us, they fired on us, knowing full well that it was a humanitarian convoy,” he said.
The organization lost two volunteers: Bohdan Stefanyshyn, 40, and Oleksii Antonov, 28. Yurii Luniov, the 41-year-old volunteer who had stepped into the bushes, was spared.
Mr. Sherembei seemed particularly distraught when he spoke of Ms. Tagirova. No plea from him or from her friends and family had stopped her from joining the trip, he said.
Even after the tragedy, giving up on the missions wasn’t an option — not when there were people, many of them children, who needed the drugs, he said. So the volunteers came up with ways to make themselves less noticeable and have made three trips so far.
Thinking that one van would attract less attention than a convoy, and that the Russians probably wouldn’t use precious missiles on one target, they swapped the two small vans for a large, dull-colored one. They no longer travel with the church group. They packed solar panels, candles for people who lived and eat in damp basements. The rescuers were only able to return about 10 people.
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
By the time of the March 30 trip, the Ukrainian military had constructed a makeshift pontoon bridge over the river for the van to traverse. Eliminating the need to unload and load the cargo reduced the time it took to cross the river from four hours to just 10 minutes.
On Chernihiv’s side, the five 100% Life employees who chose to remain in Chernihiv, as well as the staff of an infectious disease unit in one of the few hospitals still standing, were ready to collect supplies and to divide.
Communicating with these helpers brought its own challenges. Many of them were locked in basements, apart from short stints, and their cell phones were only operational for one unpredictable hour a day.
Once the plan was finalized, the news had to be spread to patients through word of mouth. (In recent days, restored power plants have eased these conditions somewhat, Mr Sherembei said.)
While the residents of Chernihiv with HIV have enough treatments for the time being, medicines are scarce. The US president’s emergency plan to fight AIDS has scoured the world to secure reserve supplies of HIV treatments for Ukraine. According to Unaids, those medicines are supplied via Poland and Romania.
But moving the drugs through war-torn parts of the country was more complicated. “Only now are we starting to get those deliveries that were shipped a month ago to make up for that shortage,” said Mr. Sherembei.
Many of 100% Life’s staff consider themselves soldiers. The day after our interview, Mr. Sherembei left to fight at the front. He said he didn’t feel like he had any other choice.
“The enemy is trying to create panic among the population,” he said. “Of course there is always a risk that people will die, that our people will die when delivering the goods. But we have to help somehow.”