Sleeping bags urgently needed: Motsi Mabuse collects for Ukraine

When talking to the in-laws on the phone, Motsi Mabuse hears the bombs falling in the background.

For the dance teacher known from television, the war in Ukraine is very close because her husband Evgenij Voznyuk comes from the country and has parents who live there, as Mabuse explains in a conversation in the garden hall of Kelkheim City Hall.

The woman speaks in a low voice about the situation in the war zone and about the attempt to help on the spur of the moment.

The couple living in Kelkheim has launched an aid campaign.

Motsi Mabuse and Evgenij Voznyuk ask for donations.

Aid goods are urgently needed, not money, as Voznyuk says.

At the moment there is little to be done with money in Ukraine because the infrastructure is collapsing and you cannot buy anything.

Jan Schiefenhoevel

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

• Follow I follow

Donations are what you need to live: sleeping bags, sleeping pads and blankets, hygiene items such as toilet paper, wet wipes, toothbrushes and disinfectants, bandages, as well as diapers for children, clothing, hats and milk powder.

Donate well packaged

The donations are collected in the old fire station in the Münster district, Zeilsheimer Straße 47.

From Tuesday to Thursday, from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., helpers are available to accept the goods.

The couple asks that the donations be delivered well packaged, for example in moving boxes that can be easily stacked in the truck.

The helpers don't want to waste time repacking and sorting.

Anyone who would like to contact the organizers can send an email to the dance school:

.

Through contact with his parents-in-law, Mabuse learned directly about the living conditions in the war zone 700 kilometers away: "They're sitting in the basement." Food and drinking water are becoming scarce - and all of that while the people in Ukraine are still like everyone else in the world are struggling with the corona pandemic.

She is happy to hear from relatives every few hours, says the dance teacher, who became known with the show "Let's Dance".

"Commitment of the democratic community"

Voznyuk is happy about the attention given to Ukraine in Germany and other countries and the willingness to help, he says.

But as a son, he finds no rest when he learns that the fighting is reaching the big cities.

At least he knows that the parents don't give up, even if they are forced to stay there.

The Ukrainian armed forces, which have been defending themselves against the invaders for days, are not only fighting for their country, "but for the whole world community".

Kelkheim Mayor Albrecht Kündiger from the Independent Kelkheim Voters' Initiative (UKW) calls for support for the couple's relief effort.

The head of the town hall speaks of respect and compassion for the people in the country.

It was stunned that the world order that Europe had relied on for so long no longer applied, that the basis for a peaceful exchange was being destroyed.

Kündiger sees an “obligation of the democratic community around the world not to leave Ukraine alone”.

In the war there, the free world is at stake.

Finally, South African-born Motsi Mabuse speaks about the situation of refugees trying to come to Poland.

Her voice is hushed when she says skin color shouldn't play a role in her inclusion.

The dancer alludes to reports that dark-skinned students from Africa are held back at the border with Poland, while white Eastern Europeans are allowed to pass.