Remarkable solidarity during the collection for the victims of the tragedy in Beslan
Evelina Rioukhina, UNOG
This collection took place in UNOG on 15 September 2004. This important
activity was initiated by the Coordination Council and organized in
a record time. Personal involvement of the Executive Secretary of the
Council, Mr. Shiubao Liu and the former Executive Secretary Mrs. Marlène
Sequeira were just outstanding.
The collection was extremely successful and to this added the personal involvement of the UNOG staff who are originally from the Russian Federation or neighbouring countries: Tatiana Apatenko, Tetyana Kolomiyets, Lyubov Chumakova, Irina Linnik, Olga Otradnova, Galina Ivanova, Mikhail Makarenko, Marlen Jigitekov.
Rachel El-Haloui-Deléglise from UN Special also volunteered to help for the collection.
I remember how on the first Monday, right after these barbaric events, sitting dumb with horror and tears in the office, I have got the phone call from Shiubau Liu who told me about the decision to organ- ise the collection on behalf of the Coordinating Council of the UNOG. The following day the collection for the victims of Beslan was on the agenda of the Council, and the meeting decided to treat this issue as a matter of emergency and to organise this collection in a record and practically unrealistic time – three working days. It was unbelievable and practically impossible, and it still it was done. Marlène Sequeira coordinated this activity. All necessary arrangements were organised by these two persons, the special account was established in UBS. Circular appeared on Monday afternoon, on Tuesday we had briefing with the Russian-speaking staff who volunteered to physically help in conducting of this collection. In the evening on the eve of the collection many posters were circulated around the new and old buildings announcing the exact venues of the collection. The collection started at 9 am and finished at 14.30 pm. All involved staff were extremely devoted to this activity. Shiubau Liu and Marlène Sequeira were there from the first minutes throughout the whole event.
During the collection of 15 September hundreds and hundreds colleagues, delegates, students-interns or simply visitors were coming to us – there was no indifferent to this tragedy, people stopped to discuss, looked again and again at the stands that we prepared for this event, discussed with us, asked to pass condolences, expressed their feelings. It was very appropriate that from the Russian Federation or neighbouring countries were involved in this collection. We all were feeling very strong solidarity of our international community and many of us during this collection experienced strong solidarity and in proper sense of the word UNITEDNESS of different nations facing this shocking tragedy.
Despite the very short notice and very limited time of collection, this was one of the most successful and for us one of the most emotional collection. Coordinating Council now will double the gain and will determine the concrete project of activity which will be financed from this collection. The situation is still dramatic, only in Moscow at present there are 125 children in critical state, many still in clinics in Vladikavkas, not to mention here what difficult rehabilitation would be needed for survivors.
On the eve of the event while placing the advertisements several persons from other United Nations bodies and international organisations asked me if we would organise the collection there as well (HCR, ILO, WHO). Perhaps in other organisations collections were organised as well, the following day after we had collection here, the ICC made the collection on their own initiative and added to the collection of UNOG. The collection of 15 September and other donations were deposited at the special account in the UNS. For those who could not participate in the collection in UNOG and would like to contribute with donation for the victims in Beslan, the UBS account No. 0279-HU165681 will be open until 20 October 2004). The information on the funds and how concretely the funds were used will be given by the Coordinating Council published in the next issue of the UN Special.