A spontaneous initiative to bring Ukrainian refugees to Luxembourg

The goal is to bring refugees from the border to Luxembourg. A stop at the Romanian-Ukrainian border is also planned. RTL.lu journalist Annick Goerens has accompanied the group on their journey. 
 
In the past six days, over 600,000 people have fled the war in Ukraine across the borders into Poland, Romania, and Moldova, according to estimates by the United Nations. An increasing number of private individuals are travelling to the Ukrainian borders to help.
 
Georges Hilbert, the director general of travel agency Sales Lentz, explains that this particular initiative was set up "spontaneously" in less than 48 hours. Sales Lentz received an email from a certain Laurent Brochmann at 5pm on Monday evening. The subject of the email was 'Hëllef gebraucht' ("Help needed"). Brochmann explained who he was and that he needed a bus operator to organise transport for 16 people from five families, including mothers and children, from the Polish-Ukrainian border to Luxembourg.
 
By now, 26 people are to be brought back to the Grand Duchy. Every couple of hours, more refugees join the group, as they remain in permanent contact with the people at the border. In addition, a substantial number of donations have been made in the past few days through a network of acquaintances, co-organiser Laurent Brochmann explains.
 
"At that point we said to ourselves that in this case, we won't travel there with an empty bus," Brochmann says. They took everything with them that they could fit in the bus and plan to hand it over to a despatching centre at the border, where it will be distributed to the people that need it. Private individuals donated a myriad of things, including "nappies, pet food, clothes, shoes, and food".
 
Two days ago, Brochmann and his co-organiser Julien Doussot founded a non-profit organisation called 'Slava Ukrayini Luxembourg'. This sentence is used as a slogan in Ukraine and roughly translates to: "Glory to Ukraine – Luxembourg".
 
The goal behind the non-profit is to collect funds and perhaps receive help from the state when it comes to the education of children. While the organisation is still being set up, they already have a bank account, a committee, and finished writing their statutes.
 
Sales Lentz provided the organisers with a coach and five bus drivers, who will take turns driving the 4,000 kilometres to Poland and Romania. Not just the cargo space of the bus is filled to the brim, but every empty seat is stacked with bags and boxes, tokens of Luxembourgish solidarity with Ukraine.