Virgile, a 21-year-old from Liège, left for Ukraine for a few weeks to help and treat the wounded. The young man has since returned to Belgium and tells us.
Helping his friends who were flooded last July was obvious to him. Same reaction a month later with the victims of the fires in the south of France. So when the war started, Virgil didn’t think long. He left. “When I got there, they immediately told me there are two choices. Either you come as a volunteer and you help from a defense point of view and all that. Or you join the ranks of the army. But if you join the ranks of the army, be aware that you risk entering an airplane trunk.”
A few months earlier, he took a short training course with the Defence. He learned the basics of war medicine. His goal: to help and heal. “I was with young people between 20 and 25 who sometimes had just finished their nursing studies, sometimes it was a lumberjack from Texas who had some skills from a medical point of view and who wanted to do only humanitarian or medical. he moved there to be able to help.”
First near the Polish border then near kyiv at the front, it brings back memories of war. “We were often, very often even, bombarded in the camp where we were with impacts and tremors which each time made us jump a little bit at night. But here we are, the goal was to provide medical assistance where the Ukrainians needed it.”
As an architecture student, he was able to put his knowledge to use in the construction of an outpost. “It was also interesting to be able to build with these blocks of sand, to develop, to be able to set up firing positions.”
Among the few photos and videos he brought back from his three weeks there, there is this moving moment: “We found ourselves singing our national anthem of each country, in particular the Ukrainian anthem which is sung by an opera singer who hosted us for a while in this city. It is true that it remains moving because that we finally realize that there is a power and a determination to defend their culture and their people.”
Virgile will not stay long in Liège. “I’m going back there next week. I’m expecting a delivery of medical equipment so I can have, I think, my compression and all that to bring to kyiv, but yes, I think he’ll be going back there very soon. I’m leaving for Easter holidays”so as not to miss a lesson again.