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Dr. Liza’s Fair Aid foundation evacuates over 70 children from Donbass over past year

According to the president of the fund, the effort to evacuate citizens from Donbass has become easier compared with previous years

MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. The Fair Aid charity fund set up by Elizaveta Glinka, who died a year ago in a Russian military plane crash en route to Syria, has evacuated 77 seriously ill children from Donbass to Russia over this past year, its current President Ksenia Sokolova told TASS.

"Over the past year we have evacuated 77 children from there [Donbass], and Liza [Elizaveta Glinka] had evacuated 500 over two years and a half," Sokolova said.

According to Sokolova, the effort to evacuate citizens from Donbass has become easier compared with previous years. "This year, we calmly flew to Rostov, got into a car and crossed the border. No one shot anywhere, there are fewer wounded persons," she said, stressing: "But the number of children waiting for assistance has not become fewer."

"It was important psychologically for people in Donbass to see a person, who led the fund after Liza’s death. They were stressed and afraid that our assistance will end. They rely very much on us. They say: "This is Russia, they will help," Sokolova said.

The charity fund’s staff members are working together with the Russian Health Ministry and the Emergencies Ministry, which provides aircraft with the necessary medical equipment.

Elizaveta Glinka, known as Dr. Liza (1962-2016), was an emergency physician and palliative medicine specialist, the first winner of Russia’s State Prize for human rights activities. She was a member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights. She founded the first hospice in Kiev, oversaw hospice work in Russia, Serbia and Armenia, founded and led the Fair Aid international charity organization, treated and fed the homeless, organized the evacuation of sick and wounded children from Ukraine’s Donbass region. She died in a plane crash in Black Sea on December 25, 2016, while accompanying medical supplies and equipment cargo for a Syrian hospital.

In late May 2017, her foundation officially changed its name to reflect the founder’s name: "Dr. Liza’s Fair Aid."