The year 2022 was full of ups and downs - in the world, and also for us. The events have changed both us personally and CADUS. We want to tell you about this intense time and its consequences for our organization here. As one of the most profound changes, we will completely withdraw from the Middle East region.
In the early morning hours, a severe earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 M shook the region in the border area between Syria and Turkey. Further strong quakes followed in the course of the day. By the afternoon, more than 2,000 people had already been counted dead, and tens of thousands more have been directly affected by the disaster. CADUS supports the Emergency Response of the Kurdish Red Crescent with medicine and vital non-food items.
For most of us war is something abstract, something that happens to other people far away from us. But the people in Ukraine are affected by the horribles of war everyday. Our emergency doctor Mike tells a personal story about a ukrainian boy named R. who was injured from a rocket and who hopefully has the most horrible effects behind him.
First we hoped: it won't start. Then we thought: maybe it won't take long. Now the hundredth day of Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine has passed, and there is no end in sight.
With the mobile Makerspace, an open workshop on wheels, we will be on the road in Western Ukraine over the next few months. There, we will work together with the local population and partner organizations to develop projects that would benefit from the support of craftsmen, tools and materials from Germany.
The war in Ukraine continues to claim victims and casualties. Louis, who has been on site as a medic for CADUS, takes us to the train platform in Lviv, where a train with patients from eastern Ukraine is arriving.
For one month now, we have been on site in Ukraine with a four-wheel drive ambulance and aretransporting patients. At the request of the World Health Organization (WHO), CADUS is now coordinating all international medical evacuations from Ukraine.
Today, a team from the Berlin-based organization CADUS sets off for southwestern Ukraine. As one of the first German Medic teams, they will provide emergency medical aid on site.