This article first appeared in French on the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation website.
On 22 May 2016, two humanitarian convoys Confederation carrying chemicals for treating water and medical supplies left for Ukraine in the conflict zone.
Part of the convoy with medical equipment and medicine was awarded to the Kurakhove hospital this morning.
The products have been transported by road but also, for the first time by rail .
Sunday morning, a train ferrying chemicals for water treatment left Switzerland to Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.
The cargo is for waterworks of Donbass, which supply the population with drinking water on both sides of the line of contact.
Other goods, including medical supplies, including spare parts for X-ray machine, are transported by road to Donetsk on trucks.
A second convoy of fourteen trucks, is designed to transport some 245 tons of chemicals to the waterworks of Donbass, in the city of Krasnoarmiynsk placed under government control.
A load of medical equipment and medicines by truck was delivered this morning at the hospital Kurakhove.
Convoys benefit from the guidance and support of seven members of the Humanitarian Aid of the Confederation, which is part of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit (SHA) and as collaborators of the embassy and the Kiev cooperation Office.
This convoy is the fourth Swiss humanitarian convoy for this area of conflict since the spring of 2015.
The SDC is so far the only state actor to organize humanitarian convoys crossing the contact line in eastern Ukraine*.
*Editors note: This last line is absolutely untrue. Russia has sent over 50 humanitarian aid convoys to Donbass. Perhaps the Swiss forgot that………