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.
At the European borders around Ukraine there are many offers of aid, but in the country itself medical support is urgently needed.
“Our goal is to treat the first patients and get a more accurate picture of the situation on the ground. Depending on the need, we will then enlarge our team and add our own ambulance vehicle,” explains Sebastian Jünemann, co-founder of CADUS and part of the first team.
The members of the team, consisting of a doctor, a nurse, a paramedic and a firefighter, have in part already been on CADUS missions in Iraq and northeastern Syria and have a lot of experience in conflict areas.

Currently, the humanitarian situation in Ukraine is developing in a worrying direction. Only recently, the shelling of a maternity clinic in the heavily contested city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine caused international shock. There have been repeated announcements of cease-fires and escape corridors for people in besieged cities. So far, evacuation attempts in the embattled cities have been unsuccessful. But it is precisely there that the humanitarian situation is catastrophic and international aid is urgently needed.

It is the ordinary citizens who are increasingly being forced into hardship in this war. Reports of civilian casualties are increasing, towns and their inhabitants are being encircled and cut off from supplies. The country’s infrastructure is increasingly under attack, and bombardments of residential areas and hospitals have become a cruel part of everyday life.
In our work, the protection of human lives has the highest priority. We call for an end to the fighting and for humanitarian aid to be made possible for the people of Ukraine.