The bus chartered from Poland by the Haute-Savoie association Yambi and carrying a group of around fifty Ukrainian refugees arrived around 5 p.m. on Tuesday in Chamonix. The 56 people, essentially women and children from the Kyiv regionwere immediately taken care of by the volunteers of the Red Cross and the staff of the town hall. “There is a lot of emotion tonightsaid the mayor of Chamonix, Éric Fournier. A lady has just told me that she had been hiding for two weeks to escape the bombardments.”
mobilization of chamoniards
The arrival of this first group of Ukrainian refugees at the foot of Mont-Blanc was organized in conjunction with a collective of inhabitants providing accommodation. From this Wednesday, the Red Cross and the Alpha3a association will carry out a pre-diagnosis in order to identify the families before their temporary accommodation and to anticipate the continuation of their support at the departmental and national level. “Chamonix schools are also ready to welcome children”explains the director of one of the school groups in the town.
In a press release, the Chamonix town hall indicates that “this reception system is intended to respond to the urgency of the situation of refugees fleeing the war without a point of departure, pending a territorial distribution supervised by the State services which are seeking in this respect and above all permanent accommodation, in particular collective, given the uncertainties that weigh on the outcome of the conflict”.
– Richard Vivion