Feature: Red Cross humanitarian aid helps pull civilians in E. Ukraine through crisis

"Prices have gone up, but my pension remains meagre. People here could suffer from starvation without the humanitarian aid," said Maria, an old lady standing in a queue in eastern Ukraine, waiting to receive an aid package from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Maria lives in Netailove, a small village in Donetsk region, some 12 km from the frontline of fighting between government troops and pro-independence insurgents. Her village is on the brink of humanitarian disaster, facing shortages in food and medicine.

The assistance from the Red Cross is one of the few sources of provisions for Netailove residents, who start to queue from early morning in the main street of the village, patiently awaiting an ICRC relief truck loaded with about 700 aid parcels of food and hygiene kits.

The ICRC assistance is a lifeline for the villagers. When the truck arrived, people became anxious and started to crowd round it, fearing that they might miss the aid kit, which is vital for their families to stretch another month.

People in the crowd were tired looking, from poverty, unemployment and instability. The youth were particularly desperate as they have no other means to make their living.

Before the conflict, Netailove was a well-developed agricultural village with a population of about 1,500. But clashes in the area in the summer of 2014 left the nearby crop fields littered with landmines and unexploded shells and forced many of its residents to flee their homes.

What's more, many displaced from Pisky village and Donetsk city, where clashes are still underway, are seeking shelter in Netailove. Despite the threat from landmines, some of them have started small-scale farming as it is the only way to feed their families.

"We found various ways to survive -- retired people rely on their pensions, humanitarian aid, and we are living off the land and also breeding livestock," said Elena, another Netailove resident, who has moved from Pisky village.

In winter, the most challenging time of the year, Netailove residents are in need of medicines and clothing items, but many of the cash-strapped people cannot afford.

Thus, the humanitarian aid from the ICRC, which includes warm blankets, hygiene products, as well as medications for children and people with chronic and severe diseases, becomes a sheet anchor for residents of Netailove.

Elsewhere in villages across the restive eastern Ukraine, the humanitarian situation is just as challenging. The Red Cross staff are working around the clock to help the most vulnerable with urgently needed relief.

"Our office works with more than 20 settlements, located near the demarcation line or the demarcation line passes through them. What kind of help we offer ... it's like today -- food and hygiene kits, in the amount of one set per person," said Natalia Vasilyuk, an expert at the cooperation and public relations department at the ICRC office in Slavyansk.

Vasilyuk, a young woman in her mid-20s, is a member of the ICRC team engaged in aid distribution in the conflict-torn region. Like the other Red Cross workers, she wore neither a helmet nor a protective bulletproof vest, showing that ICRC is not a militarized organization and their employees are protected by the Geneva Convention.

Nonetheless, after distributing the aid, the Red Cross workers need, for security reasons, to leave the village as soon as possible before the sunset, as shelling in the frontline usually resumes after dark, making their return to the office in Slavyansk extremely dangerous.

Netailove residents are also hurrying home. With rare smiles on their faces, the villagers loaded massive aid parcels on bicycles or hand trucks, relieved that the lifeline provisions would pull them through another period of the hard times that has no end in sight. Endit