Aid to fire victims ends up on dumping ground

An official in the Ryazan region, one of the areas most affected by this summer’s fires, has been fired after it became known that she had dumped humanitarian aid intended for fire victims.

The head of a local social aid center, Svetlana Dardykina, said she had no room to stock the clothes and that most of them were old and not fit for use. However, locals say many things were brand new and even had checks attached.

Aleksandr Shustin, from the logistics company which delivered the 40-ton cargo from Siberia to the Ryazan region, confirmed this:

“We packed the aid ourselves, there was no garbage, no old useless things,” he said.

The governor of the region Oleg Kovalyov has apologized to Novosibirsk residents who collected and sent around 40 tons of aid to those who lost their homes and possessions in the fires. He also ordered an investigation into the incident, which caused public outrage. Officially 800 people have been affected in the Ryazan region by the fires.

Local authorities said that the dumping ground has already been sorted out and they are now selecting things that can still be used once they have been disinfected. Some part of the aid had already been stolen before the incident surfaced.