A total of 48 retired emergency vehicles, including ambulances, that have been refurbished by a businessman in Changhua County are soon to be delivered to Ukraine to help rescue workers there.
At a donation ceremony on Friday, Pai Tsan-jung (白璨榮), director of Shenkang Township (神岡)-based Sun Jen Textile Co, said he came up with the idea after hearing a friend discussing plans to assist Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion.
The initial plan was to purchase used emergency vehicles from abroad and deliver them to Ukraine, but that idea proved to be too expensive, Pai said.
Photo: Liu Hsiao-hsin, Taipei Times
So instead, he decided to buy retired ambulances and fire trucks from the government, and get them refurbished by local garages, Pai said.
At first, the plan was to send about four vehicles to Ukraine, but after receiving a donation of about 100 government-owned emergency vehicles from across Taiwan, the scale of the plan increased exponentially, he said.
Pai said he has already spent about NT$10 million (US$321,182) on refurbishing the vehicles, and the first batch is set to be shipped to Ukraine on July 13, with assistance from the non-profit Taiwan Association of Community Advancement (TACA) and the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.
Despite being retired, the vehicles have been refurbished and would continue to be useful in Ukraine, TACA head Chang Tsai-kai (張再凱) said at the ceremony, which was also attended by Department of European Affairs Director Vincent Yao (姚金祥) and Olga Kulish, a convener of Ukrainians living in Taiwan.
Kulish said that since the war started, the lack of medical resources has been a critical issue, with many hospitals destroyed and a general shortage of ambulances and fire engines.
She thanked the people of Taiwan for the emergency vehicles, saying they would be used to save lives in Ukraine.
In a prerecorded video, Kira Rudik, leader of the liberal Holos party in Ukraine, said that Taiwan has been helping Ukraine since the beginning of the war, and that support shows little sign of abating.
When Ukraine was invaded 16 months ago, not many people believed Ukrainians could resist this long, Rudik said.
However to this day, Ukraine continues to fight back, because its people are fighting for their freedom and future, she said.
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