Morecambe brothers on a mission to take families fleeing Ukraine to safety

Wednesday, 16 March 2022 16:50

By Greg Lambert @greglam72

Paul and John Latham in their minibus in Slovakia.

Two brothers from Morecambe are helping the Ukraine relief effort by driving families to places of safety as they escape their homeland.

John and Paul Latham are picking up refugees in a minibus after they walk across the Ukraine-Slovakia border "bewildered and literally with nothing".

John and Paul then transport them to a safe place to stay, which could be with a family, in a hotel or a hostel, before they decide where to go next.

The brothers travelled to Slovakia after a crowdfunding campaign raised close to £10,000 to pay for the minibus and supplies to take to the people of Ukraine.

John, who works for the NHS, spoke to Beyond Radio direct from Slovakia about what he and Paul, a retired pilot, had experienced since arriving.

"Our main mission was to get out here to see how we can lend a hand," he said.

"We are bringing supplies here in a minibus. Once we've emptied that, we are basically transport. So for two weeks we will be transporting people around to places of safety.

"We distribute all these kind donations of supplies and aid directly to people, as they literally walk across the Ukraine-Slovakian border with nothing.

"They are coming through at a steady pace, in their masses. Every minute someone is passing through.

"They are bewildered and not too sure where there are. It's mainly women with children, sometimes older people. I've seen hundreds and hundreds in two days.

"The main priority is to get them away from the border into some sort of transit place; safe, warm and fed.

"So far we've moved 20 or 30 people. Yesterday we drove all day.

"We did 1000km to take a whole family, quite distressed, to their next place of safety. That's our main mission, to make sure that whole families can move to somewhere safe, where they can collect their thoughts, make connections, go to the next stage.

"Then they're here one or two days, two or three weeks, then they've got family in Berlin or Prague or Paris, maybe the UK.

"Some of them have been walking 20km. They are freezing cold. They're thinking, maybe we will be back (home) in two weeks. I'm not sure that will be the case.

"The main thing is to get all those people away from the border, away from possible exploitation and starvation. We've moved dozens of people to the train station, to the mountains. We've just dropped some people off at a castle. We can't take everybody, but we do what we can do.

"The kids speak English, they learn it in school. They sometimes become the interpreter.

"Their stories, we don't need to know. We don't even ask. Sometimes you can just see an empty look on someone's face. A picture speaks a thousand words."

John has many connections in Eastern Europe, built up from his years of working as an international project manager.

"We have good friends from Ukraine, I've been working with them and friends from Slovakia for a long time. This is quite well-planned.

"We've found a room here, so we can be on-call."

John thanked everyone who donated money through their Justgiving page, which is still open.