AFP
In a flying hospital, the hope of better days for the injured in Ukraine
Grimaces betray contained pain, pensive glances get lost through the portholes… In this Boeing 737, the passengers are out of the ordinary: in their soul and in their flesh, all have been affected by the war in Ukraine. “It’s the first time I’ve flown. I would have liked to go to Denmark under normal circumstances, on vacation for example, not to go to the hospital because of a trauma”, testifies Mykola Fedirko .On his wrist, a silicone bracelet with the inscription “Ukraine”. On his left leg, metal pins stuck directly in the tibia to stabilize the fracture suffered while defending his country. A salesman by profession who became a soldier by necessity, the 22-year-old young man with an emaciated face received a shrapnel while he held a trench facing Russian troops in the Donetsk region. Accompanied by his girlfriend, “Kolya”, his diminutive, is one of some 2,000 patients to have been evacuated from Ukraine to be rerouted all over the world. continent since the outbreak of hostilities. Mostly war wounded, but also civilians requiring major treatment. AFP is the first international media to board one of these medical evacuation flights (“evasan”) carried out by Norway as part of the ‘a collaboration with the European Union. “We established this project at the request of Ukraine (…) in order to ease the burden on Ukrainian hospitals”, explains Juan Escalante, head of the (European) Center Emergency Response Coordination Unit (ERCC). An “unprecedented continent-wide” mechanism put in place in “record time”, he argues. In Ukraine, the World Health Organization (WHO ) has counted 859 health facilities affected by attacks since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. are deprived each month of the medical aid required, according to the Norwegian authorities. SAS 737 transformed into a flying hospital is heading for south-eastern Poland and Rzeszow airport, 70 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. A hub whose strategic importance is obvious: on both sides from the single runway, dozens of anti-aircraft missiles point skyward, ready to counter possible threats from the air. If it is on this airfield that patients from Ukraine are redistributed to the rest of Europe, it is also here that Westerners transport weapons and ammunition intended for their Ukrainian allies. In a cruel crossover, while war cripples are transferred on stretchers in the medicalized Boeing, huge cargo planes disgust pallets of ammunition a few meters further on the same parking area. On the “evasan” flight, the crew is civilian and the military medical personnel. In a semblance of normality, an air hostess distributes pizzas, snacks and sodas in the rows. Also shot in the legs, Oleksiï Radzivil, 28, swallows his Margherita washed down with a Coke. Exploding in the ambient gravity, this man with disheveled hair and thin metallic glasses, a software engineer before the war, never loses his smile. Not even when he came to his senses after a Russian rocket destroyed his vehicle, sending it several meters into the air, in December in Bakhmout, the epicenter of fighting in eastern Ukraine. “I smiled because that I was alive”, he recalls. Since then, he has been through six hospitals in his country. “I hope that I will be cured (…), that European doctors in the Netherlands will be able to help me”, he says.- ‘Fight against Putin’ – On the Old Continent, these patient transfers are presented as a form of contribution to the war effort. “Their presence here in Spain is another way of fighting against Putin”, underlined the Spanish Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, while visiting the military hospital in Zaragoza last year. last. With its 20 berths, its monitors, its transfusion and artificial respiration equipment, its countless vials of antibiotics, the Boeing has everything “of a small flying intensive care unit”, summarizes Håkon Asak. This lieutenant-colonel from the Norwegian army medical service also proudly wears a blue and yellow “Free Ukraine” bracelet. “We have never had a death on board, thank God,” he says. ‘seem to be fine but they are still in serious condition and we know that some of those who were evacuated to different countries did not survive the entire duration of the treatment,’ said the officer. the handle, an old veteran. In his first life, at the twilight of the Cold War, Arve Thomassen was a fighter pilot who intercepted Soviet aircraft in the Arctic. At 60, this colorful Norwegian says he is happy to end his career with a good cause. “When you transport passengers to the Mediterranean for sunbathing, it’s normal business, I wouldn’t say boring but ordinary” , he said from his cockpit. “While that, we take a lot of pride but also humility from it,” he adds. disfigured evoking the “broken faces” of 14-18, and then this three-year-old kid with leukemia. “It’s impossible to forget”, continues the captain. “One thing is wounded soldiers, but suffering children… that always makes a strong impression on someone, I think”. do not sleep. A contractor turned armored personnel carrier, this dark-bearded man with piercing blue eyes has suffered from tetraparesis, a muscle weakness affecting all four limbs, since a shrapnel entered the back of his neck. “I’m not comfortable at the idea of leaving my country”, assures the young man of 24 years. “At the hospital in Germany, I hope they will get me back on my feet quickly so that I can go back”.vk-phy/map/sg