Reflections in the fast lane from those suffering in Ukraine

Every passenger seat carries an emotional human story

Dusk on the road to the Ukraine border. Image: Author

Every passenger carries with them what may be their only possessions in the world.

In many cases, it’s a solitary bag with the few belongings they could gather once the sirens began to sound and the shells began to fall, signaling that their sense of normal no longer existed and that their lives were in danger.

Having often endured weeks in makeshift underground shelters, the uncertainty of their futures, the fear, and the trauma finally forces them from their homes, their towns, cities, and their loved ones.

It’s a heartbreaking narrative that’s difficult to imagine in the civilized world we live in today.

Yet, for the people of Ukraine it’s very real and it’s happening now — Every single day.

Any association their world may have had with what we regard, and so often take for granted as civilized, ended abruptly when Russian tanks rolled across their border on 24 February this year.

More than five million Ukrainians uprooted themselves and fled, many leaving behind the rubble-strewn ruins of their homes once the indiscriminate shelling commenced.

Mindless chaos

Fast Lane Ukraine was conceived during the following fortnight and within a further week, the first minibusses were leaving Amsterdam to take humanitarian aid out to the Ukraine border and bring back displaced refugees.

It was a direct response to the inhumanity and suffering that started unfolding immediately following the unprovoked invasion.

The tireless, ongoing, humanitarian work of the volunteer drivers and back-office teams at Fast Lane Ukraine (FLU) is not going to resolve this needless conflict. However, it is making a difference.

It offers support and some comfort to every one of the innocent victims who have reached out for help to escape the mindless destruction and chaos they’ve been so ruthlessly subjected to.

There are no politics involved. It’s simply about helping people in desperate need.

The dedicated volunteers giving their time to organizations like Fast Lane not only care, but they’re also doing something proactive that makes a positive impact.

Scores of tonnes of aid including medical supplies, food, clothing, footwear, tents, blankets, sleeping bags, toiletries, and baby and period products are being transported out to distribution centers in Poland close to the Ukrainian border.

The frontline

This aid is either delivered to distribution centers throughout Poland for the benefit of displaced refugees or stored in depots awaiting onward transport to the many areas of need throughout Ukraine, including the frontline.

The simple concept and appeal of the FLU operation are enhanced by the fact that the minibusses do not make their return trips empty. They provide free and safe transport for up to seven refugees, often fragmented families, wounded soldiers, and vulnerable individuals, back to the Netherlands.

Once back in Holland, the refugees are either dropped off with relatives or pre-arranged host families. If these are not options, the refugees are taken to be registered for assistance at one of the Dutch Red Cross humanitarian aid centers set up following the start of the war.

The Dutch response to this humanitarian injustice sets quite an example epitomized by the main Red Cross Centre at Jaarbeurs, Utrecht which works closely with Fast Lane and accommodates most of the refugees the organization brings back to the Netherlands.

FLU Ride No. 263 recently returned and is typical of all those that preceded it.

Setting out from Amsterdam at 06:30 am, the designated cargo of food arranged by the back-office team was picked up from a rural location at Aarle-Rixtel, Eindhoven. Boxed tins, jars of beans, peas, carrots, rice, and pasta weighed heavily on the rear axle throughout the 1,350km journey to a distribution warehouse in Lublin, eastern Poland.

The network of official and unofficial operations, companies, and individuals working selflessly together to do whatever they can to help the Ukrainian humanitarian effort is both heart-warming and inspiring.

Among the nine people forming a human chain to help load the boxes from the agricultural store to the van, were several women who had already escaped the war in Ukraine. They found accommodation and work at the local food processing firm generously donating our consignment on this trip.

No common language

Having arrived west of Warsaw shortly before midnight for a stop-over, our cargo was unloaded the following morning two hours further south in Lublin with the assistance of several Polish warehouse workers. Although we shared no common language, the unity in what we were undertaking together created its own bond, and their eagerness to help warmed you to them.

The two pallets we created were securely wrapped ready for the forklift to load onto the next scheduled lorry heading across the border into Ukraine.

Our next destination took us closer to the Ukrainian border for a priority pick-up in the city of Przemyśl.

An injured frontline soldier and his wife were waiting for us at a hotel on the outskirts of the city. We arrived within minutes of the scheduled 13:30 pick-up.

Stanislav was recovering from back, knee, and head injuries and post-traumatic stress from the constant shelling on the frontline near Kyiv where he was defending his home city.

Defending his country

We were taking him back to the Netherlands to receive specialist medical treatment from the University Medical Centre in Utrecht.

This incredibly brave 41-year-old father of two young children epitomizes the Ukrainian spirit and was adamant he would be re-joining his unit in a matter of weeks to continue defending his country.

Our next rendezvous was 400km north back towards Warsaw for another priority pick-up. This time a mother, Vladlena, and mother-in-law, Zoia, from Kharkiv (and their three dogs including a British Bulldog weighing in at nearly 50 kilos).

This request from the Red Cross Centre in Utrecht was to reunite the two women with their daughter/daughter-in-law and to meet, for the first time, their granddaughter who was born while the mother was fleeing Ukraine during the preceding weeks.

Our final passengers also picked up in Warsaw, were Raisa and her 80-year-old father, Yevgeny. As with so many of FLU’s passengers, their home in eastern Ukraine has been left in ruins by the shelling.

Raisa, who spoke no English, simply shook her head in disbelief as she showed us the heart-breaking pictures of the blown-out ruins of her apartment building on her phone. Sadly, FLU’s drivers have seen many such images.

Emotive human story

Despite this raw emotion, with every FLU trip that goes out carrying humanitarian aid and returning with refugees, there is hope.

And, crucially, the realisation that these Ukrainian refugees are not on their own and that they haven’t been forgotten.

Every passenger seat carries a person in need with a name. While their possessions may be confined to a solitary bag, each one of them also carries a highly emotional human story that simply can’t be overlooked and deserves all the help and support we can give.

Let’s do everything we can to support the work of organizations like Fast Lane Ukraine and keep this hope alive.