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Credit…Bryce Wilson, via Reuters
Credit…Chris Parry, via Instagram, via Reuters

Ukrainian police said that two British citizens, Andrew Bagshaw and Chris Parry, departed from the city of Kramatorsk at 8am on January 6 and headed east to the front line of the war between Ukraine and Russia.

Their mission, according to an aid worker familiar with the matter, was to evacuate an elderly woman in Soledar, a small town where Russian and Ukrainian forces were waging a fierce battle.

They never come back.

Questions lingered about their fate until Tuesday, when Mr Parry’s family confirmed in a statement released through the UK foreign office that “our beloved Chrissy” and Mr Bagshaw had been killed. “while attempting a humanitarian evacuation from Soledar.”

“His selfless determination to help the elderly, children and disadvantaged people there made us and his extended family extremely proud,” the statement said.

Mr Bagshaw’s parents said the man’s vehicle was hit by artillery fire, although investigations are ongoing. Press Conference. They said they feared such an outcome, but were “very, very proud” of his work.

Mr Bagshaw, 47, and Mr Parry, 28, were part of a special group of foreigners with little or no combat experience who helped evacuate civilians from the front lines, acquaintances know said. Some of Mr. Parry and Mr. Bagshaw’s evacuations were document via journalistincluding Arnaud De Decker, who shared footage of Mr. Parry in Bakhmut days before he disappeared.

Their deaths are a stark reminder of the danger faced by those whose jobs have become a lifeline in the Donbas, where many Ukrainians are trapped in some of the worst war zones. that Europe has seen since the Second World War.

Grzegorz Rybak, a foreign volunteer who worked with both men and lived with Mr. Bagshaw in Kramatorsk for two weeks, said on January 6, the two men “went to a really dangerous address. dangerous”. “And they didn’t come back.”

The PMC Wagner, a group of mercenaries infamous for fighting for Russia, announced a week after they went missing that one of the men’s bodies had been found. The group posted photos on Telegram of what appeared to be their passports, along with a certificate identifying Mr Parry as a volunteer with the Pavlo Vyshniakov Foundation, a Kyiv-based charity that specializes in sending Resources include food and medical supplies for civilians, hospitals and military groups. The platform declined to comment.

Wagner’s claims could not be verified at the time, and Russian state media have since claimed that the men were mercenaries without proof.

The war in Ukraine is a humanitarian predicament. Conditions in some areas are too dangerous for people to stay, or many international organizations don’t allow their staff to venture in, said Abby Stoddard, a humanitarian policy analyst.

So some of the riskiest evacuations are being carried out by independent volunteers – “in other words, the people with the fewest resources to keep people safe,” Ms. Stoddard said.

Bryan Stern, a US veteran, co-founder of a humanitarian organization rescue operation, described frontline evacuation efforts in Ukraine as “free for all.” He said that while foreign volunteers came to Ukraine with good intentions, most “didn’t know what they were doing”.

“This is really why this is such a sad story,” he said.

Mr. Parry is a software engineer who wants to travel the world, his family said.

At the beginning of January, he told local BBC station in Cornwall, where he grew up, that he “knew nothing” about Ukraine before the invasion but was “obsessed” with helping. He planned to enlist with foreign fighters, but had no combat experience, instead, he bought a truck and started working as an evacuation driver last March.

In an Instagram parcel made a few days after arrival, Mr. Parry wrote that he felt nervous about the planned journey to Kharkiv because “everyone I spoke to about it believed it was very likely that I would die.” “.

Mr. Bagshaw is a British geneticist who was working last spring in Christchurch, New Zealand, when he decided to go to Ukraine, a photojournalist who met him wrote in New Zealand Ambassador in October. His family told reporters he believes “it’s the morally right thing to do.”

Mr. Rybak, who translates for the volunteers, says their special activity is largely carried out by a small community of English speakers in Kramatorsk. Mr Parry and Mr Bagshaw neither spoke Ukrainian nor Russian, he said.

Mr. Rybak said Ukrainians will contact local aid workers about relatives near Bakhmut, and their addresses will be passed on to volunteers who will drive into the conflict area to evacuate them, usually on donation or community-sponsored vehicles. Trips are unpredictable, Rybak said, with addresses sometimes being left empty or residents resisting evacuation.

The men had plans for after the war. Mr. Parry had a partner he wanted to marry, Mr. Rybak recalled, and Mr. Bagshaw wanted to continue his scientific career.

“They want to live,” he said.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff contribution report.

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