The man’s passing was announced on Monday by the Nehemiah Initiative, a Polish aid group he was working for, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
'Extensive stomach wounds'
On Saturday, March 18, the Nehemiah Initiative said that two of its volunteers to Ukraine had been injured in Russian shelling in eastern Ukraine and were taken to hospital in the central city of Dnipro.
One of the men, a Ukrainian citizen living in Poland, sustained less serious injuries, while the other, a Polish national, suffered “extensive stomach wounds,” according to reports at the time.
On Friday, March 24, the Nehemiah Initiative said that the less seriously injured of the two volunteers had already returned to Poland, while his more seriously wounded colleague would be “transferred to another city in Ukraine for further treatment and then evacuated to Poland.”
The second man’s condition was described as “serious but stable.”
The Nehemiah Initiative said the evacuation was being overseen by Poland’s Humanitarian and Medical Assistance Team (ZPHM), adding that the team “also maintained regular contact with the families of both men.”
Hospital treatment
In a further update at the weekend, the Nehemiah Initiative said that the condition of the second of the volunteers was “improving” though "still serious.”
It added that the man’s injuries were “responding to treatment” and that for the first time there had been contact with him, “after a temporary reduction in the dose of anaesthetic drugs.”
For most of the time, the volunteer was being kept in a medically-induced coma to support his recovery and Nehemiah Initiative officials said they had “more hope than in previous days,” the PAP news agency reported.
Polish volunteer dies from injuries sustained while helping Ukraine
On Monday, the aid group announced that the volunteer hospitalised in Ukraine had died.
“Today came the news we never wanted to hear: our friend Marek, a volunteer delivering humanitarian aid in Ukraine, died in the hospital as a result of his wounds,” the Nehemiah Initiative said in a statement.
The aid group said the volunteer had been making humanitarian trips to Ukraine since the autumn, including to the war-ravaged northern city of Irpin, the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk in the east.
He “took these trips very seriously” and had undergone “specialised training" for "volunteers going to the frontline areas,” according to the Nehemiah Initiative.
The aid group said, as quoted by the PAP news agency: “On Thursday, March 16th, barbaric shelling reached him, his friend from our team and 4 other civilians while delivering humanitarian aid on the Konstantinovka - Chasiv Yar route” in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The Neheniah Initiative added: “Despite rapid evacuation and the utmost professionalism of Ukrainian medics, who fought for his life during several hours of operations, Marek died in a clinic in Kyiv before noon today."
Monday was day 397 of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, rmf24.pl