Seven vans of aid heading for Ukraine after biker group's rallying call

Members of the Chapel Ash-based Wolfruna Chapter – a Harley-Davidson Owners Group (HOG) – had already visited the border to drop off items weeks ago.

But the "brutal" scenes they witnessed at Medyka, one of the main road border crossings between Poland and Ukraine, showed them more had to be done.

Mark Cutler, director of the Wolfruna Chapter, witnessed refugees who had nothing more than the clothes on their back as they fled from their war-torn country.

And it led to him speaking to the directors of other chapters and led to seven vans being filled with much-needed humanitarian aid for those impacted by the war.

He said: "What we're doing is a follow up to what we did a few weeks ago, but there's more of us doing it now. Basically, the Wolfruna Chapter, a HOG chapter based at Chapel Ash in Wolverhampton, decided to take some aid over to refugees fleeing Ukraine – but little did we know it was as bad as it was.

"We ended up with three vans of aid, humanitarian aid – clothes, baby stuff, sanitary products. We got there and we thought 'we need to do more'. On a call, I had the opportunity to speak with the other chapter directors and said 'we need to do better'.

"We have people coming across the border with only what they stand up in – these are people who have been displaced from their homes and lost their livelihoods, and they're predominately women and older people.

"When you see a girl waiting on the border for her friend – it was minus temperatures there – and you ask her how long she's been waiting for her friend, and she says 'two days'. She said she had stood just there and she was blue and purple. Having the opportunity to speak to them, the HOG, they've mobilised in a very short space of time."

The various chapters from across the country came together to meet at the Harley-Davidson headquarters in London, with representatives from Sherwood, Lakeside, Red Rose, Nene Valley, and a chapter from Wales – the Welsh Dragon.

Mr Cutler said: "We now have seven vans of humanitarian aid and (we've set off on Thursday) afternoon to the Polish border. We go to Harwich to the Hook of Holland, through Holland to Germany, and then to Poland – to Medyka.

"The distribution centre is at Tesco's near there and what you have is at Tesco, they've handed over the whole of their site. You go round to the back and give the stuff you've collected. In front, there's coaches of people who have been displaced from their loved ones and from their homes – from the very rich to the very poor and there's one unifying factor and that is they've only got the clothes on their back.

"They will be on a coach, they were ushered on when we were down there last time. There was a group on a coach full of children and what you had was essentially a 15-year-old looking after a 10-year-old looking after a five-year-old; it's an older young person looking after a younger person looking after the youngest person still.

"They are completely miserable, upset and completely unaware of what happens next. You speak to them and they say the eyes are the windows to the soul and they seem like soul-less individuals. And those are children who have lost their parents – they've been displaced en-route to there. Their parents are out there somewhere."

The 56-year-old added: "It's brutal out there, to be honest. I consider myself to be a tough guy – I've got a swinging brick of a heart it's been said – and it took me a week to talk about those things without breaking down in tears.

"We've got seven vans that are driving down in convoy full of humanitarian aid, funded by people who've donated money. We're not a charity, we're just delivering 100 per cent of what's donated – there's no admin costs, wages, or anything like that. It's not a jolly, it's not a holiday, it's a lot of driving to get where we need to get to."

People can donate much-needed items for the next run – scheduled to take place on May 19 – by contacting Mark through his email at: director@wolfrunahog.uk