Renewed Bombardment of Kharkov Sees Homes Destroyed and Mass Evacuations

by Mendel Super – chaabd.org

For a while it seemed as if life was going back to normal in decimated Kharkov, as residents began to return and dig their way out of the rubble. Chabad’s Kharkov emissary, Rabbi Moshe Moskovitz, returned to his community of 30 years in May to the jubilation of Kharkov’s Jews who stayed behind, including many eldery community members.

Over June 21-22, that fragile calm was shattered by the most intense bombing the city—Ukraine’s second-largest—has suffered in weeks. The Chabad-led Jewish Relief Network Ukraine (JRNU) has been working day and night to evacuate civilians from the war zone, and has so far been successful in bringing 99 men, women and children—whose homes were destroyed in the fresh round of fighting—to safety in Chernivtsi, Western Ukraine, according to Judi Garrett, JRNU’s chief operating officer. “As Kyiv and Kharkov became too unstable for these families, they needed to be evacuated and we were able to help,” Garrett tells Chabad.org.

The evacuees will be housed in a hotel in Chernivtsi temporarily. “The refugees’ homes have been destroyed so they have no way to return to their previous lives,” says Garrett. “We are working to help them find the resources that they need to build new lives in their new city.”