Sixteen elderly people died from starvation in September in Donetsk. The people could not eat anything as they were afraid to go out of basements, where they were hiding from bombs, the head of Fair Aid Charity Fund, Doctor Elizaveta Glinka said.
"There are many elderly and lonely individuals, who experience terrible problems, living in cold apartments, basements and bomb shelters. The strong shortage of medicines and the lack of medical supervision require the creation of a hospice for those who need assistance. In September, 16 elderly people died from starvation in the center of the city of Donetsk. They were afraid to leave their shelters, so they could not make any food for themsevles," she said on Tuesday at a meeting of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation.
"We [the Russians] are the nation that survived the war and its terrible consequences. We shared bread even with prisoners of war. I believe that we can not ignore the weak in this situation - the elderly and people with disabilities. We decided to support the creation of the hospice in Donetsk," she said, RIA Novosti reports.
Elizaveta Glinka, known as Dr. Liza, has repeatedly visited the south-east of Ukraine with humanitarian missions to deliver medicines and medical instruments, as well as to evacuate sick children from the combat zone. In early August, Glinka brought nine seriously ill children from the east of Ukraine to Moscow. Later, she returned from Donetsk with three more children.