Ukraine aid: Large Christmas convoy starts from Germany (video)

STORY: The last colorfully wrapped parcels were carefully loaded onto trucks by helpers in Mülheim-Kärlich on Friday, before they set off on a long journey, thousands of kilometers in the direction of Eastern Europe. For more than 20 years, the so-called Christmas parcel convoy has been bringing presents to children in need in countries such as Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova. The basic idea is: children help children, as Stephan Zipperlen, spokesman for the Christmas parcel convoy, explains: “For us, this means that we address schools, school children and kindergarten children in Germany that they donate a toy that is in good condition and then, together with their parents, a real one make a Christmas present out of it.” More than 100,000 packages come together every year. The packed trucks started on Saturday from Hanau in Hesse. For the first time this year we are going to a refugee camp in Poland. In the Ukraine, the situation is so problematic that you can’t drive in yourself, says Zipperlen. “But through the network that we have built up over the years, we have been driving aid convoys, aid trucks to Ukraine since February 24, have driven 163 trucks this year to Ukraine, to Moldova to refugee camps since February. And over We can now use this network to ensure transport for the Christmas parcel convoy.” According to the United Nations, almost eight million people have fled Ukraine since the outbreak of war, most of them to neighboring Poland.More than a million Ukrainian refugees are registered in Germany.It will take three days, Zipperlen estimates, for the colorful Christmas packages to arrive arrive in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa and hopefully bring joy and a moment of normality to the children there.