Koreans' gusto for supporting Ukraine is dwindling

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Koreans' gusto for supporting Ukraine is dwindling

Published: 22 Mar. 2022, 18:57 Updated: 23 Mar. 2022, 16:02

Foreign students hold images of Ukraine’s national flag in a show of solidarity Monday on Keimyung University’s Seongseo Campus in Daegu during a festival celebrating Nowruz, the start of spring. Nowruz is celebrated in many countries across the world, such as in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Mongolia and Turkey. [NEWS1]

When Russia invaded Ukraine late last month, Koreans were quick to lend a helping hand, relief groups here recall.

Some booked accommodations in Ukraine with no intention of showing up as a way to donate, while others wired cash to a special account run by the Ukrainian Embassy in Seoul. Even as the top two presidential candidates were running neck-and-neck, far more people were looking up information on the war than on the race, according to website traffic data from Naver, Korea’s top search engine.

But for some reason, that trend changed on March 5, the weekend before the election.

Since then, humanitarian organizations say that it seems Koreans’ interest in the Ukrainian crisis has somewhat fizzled out. This sad reality comes against the gloomier backdrop of the ever-growing casualties in Ukraine.

“We used to get a lot of calls asking about ways to participate in volunteer programs in Ukraine’s neighboring country of Poland,” said a staff member of a private welfare foundation.

“The phone isn’t ringing as often nowadays.”

An official at the Hope Bridge Korea Disaster Relief Association noted that donations for Ukraine were shrinking with each passing day, apparently because people were showing more interest in other domestic issues that are making headlines. Up to last week, the association managed to collect a total of 400 million won ($329,000), the official revealed.

A spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Korea, which was the country’s first organization to raise funds for Ukraine, also acknowledged the changed atmosphere, saying donations have shrunk since around March 6, apparently due to local media's shifted coverage of other events.

But with no signs of the war between Ukraine and Russia slowing down, the sources urged the Korean public to continue showing support, stressing that an “exponential” number of Ukrainian civilians are in need of help.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) announced Monday that at least 2,421 civilian casualties have been counted in Ukraine — 925 killed and 1,496 injured. Seventy-five of the killed were children.

The office mentioned in a report that most of the casualties were caused by the use of explosive weapons, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems and missile and airstrikes. The actual figures are believed to be “considerably higher,” the office highlighted.

The UNHCR noted in a separate statement that more than 3.1 million refugees were forced to flee Ukraine over the past three weeks, and that millions were displaced within the country.

“In addition to those who have had to flee, around 13 million people have been affected in the areas hardest hit by the war within Ukraine and are in need of humanitarian and protection assistance,” the UNHCR said.

To raise awareness about these dire circumstances, an official at Miral Welfare Foundation, which launched a donation campaign earlier this month, said the group was planning a fundraising concert in June.

The Hope Bridge Korea Disaster Relief Association said it’s planning to dispatch a group of medical professionals to Poland on Wednesday for a week-long mission.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Embassy in Seoul is known to have collected more than 3.6 billion won up to last week.

BY PARK KUN, LEE SUNG-EUN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]