Boats for flooded Kherson

5 inflatable boats from Ambulance Relief were hand-delivered by Swiss humanitarian Marcel Kübler to volunteers in Kherson, Ukraine, early morning on Tuesday 13th June – 7 days after the Nova Kakhovka dam was breached and catastrophic floods unleashed.

The portable boats left Basel on Sunday 11th June – together with other donations of 40 water pumps, one diving robot that can detect mines and hundreds of water purification measures. Along the journey, bottled water, food and animal nutrition were added to the van.

Thanks to Olga Nikodon – Kherson resident, currently in Switzerland – Helen was connected to Oleg Samarskiy and the Help HQ Kherson organisation on the ground. Early on Tuesday 13th June, Marcel and the van from Basel arrived with Oleg and his team.

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From hearing about the possible journey to aid being unloaded in Kherson: about 100 hours. Here’s how it unfolded…

Late on Thursday 8 June 2023, Helen heard from Marcel that he would be driving to Kherson. Around midnight she ordered online an inflatable boat for the quickest delivery. With no guarantee it would arrive on time, on Friday morning she drove to her nearest Decathlon. Helen bought the four biggest inflatable boats in stock, which included pump, oars and the capacity to add a motor. All boxes were suitable for transport.

On the morning of Saturday 10, a fifth boat ordered online arrived at Helen’s front door.

On Saturday 10 afternoon, Helen drove all 5 boats to St Jakob’s Halle in Basel, to transfer them from her car into the van Marcel would be taking into Ukraine.

These boats were funded by wonderful donors of http://www.ambulance-relief.org

The transport was arranged by Marcel Kübler of http://www.ukrainehilfemitherz.ch; Carina Weiss; Martin Kussen of http://www.1019.ch; Claudia Raine of http://www.frombaselwithlove.ch; and great people around them.