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No passport means no surgery. Story of Mykhailo

June 7, 2021

Mykhailo was born in the late 1960s in the Kursk region of the former USSR. In 1984, the man moved to a permanent residence in the Donetsk region. Here he received education and his first passport as a citizen of the USSR. He later started to work and got married. 

Mykhailo did not receive the passport of a citizen of Ukraine in time due to the lack of the necessary forms. However, in his USSR passport, he was marked as a "Citizen of Ukraine".  The man lived with this document until the 2000s, but then he lost his passport.

For several years, a man tried in vain to obtain a passport of a citizen of Ukraine. Due to the fact that the man did not have any document confirming his citizenship, the State Migration Service of Ukraine refused to document him with a passport of a citizen of Ukraine.

In August 2020, Mykhailo turned to the Slovyansk office of the Charitable Fund "Right to Protection" (R2P) for help in obtaining a passport. The lawyer made numerous inquiries in order to obtain evidence of the man's permanent residence in Ukraine as of 24 August 1991.  Witnesses who agreed to appear in court to confirm Mykhailo's residence in Ukraine also helped to prove his identity.

After receiving sufficient evidence, the lawyer sent a statement to the court establishing the fact of Mykhailo's permanent residence on the territory of Ukraine as of August 24, 1991. 

The court granted the application, and with this decision, Mykhailo applied to the State Migration Service of Ukraine department to obtain a certificate of registration as a citizen of Ukraine.

In early April, the man received a long-awaited passport. With this document, a man will finally be able to undergo a full medical examination.

Yet, the story did not end there

A few years ago, a tragedy occurred in his life: he was hit by a car at a crosswalk and his leg was broken and not cured.

Without documents, Mykhailo was unable to seek medical help and has been using crutches all this time, thus risking having gangrene because his leg was broken and not healed for several years.

After receiving his passport, Mykhailo underwent a medical examination and hopes to have surgery. Having signed a declaration with the family doctor, he finally has the opportunity to seek surgical help.

However, the man faced a new problem. The operation costs 20,000 hryvnias, but he does not have money and, due to his health condition, he is not able to earn it alone. 

Mykhailo applied to multiple banks for a loan, but each bank denied him because he had no official source of income.

Mykhailo requires urgent leg surgery. It is the only chance to save his leg from amputation due to gangrene.

Our colleagues Sofiia Kordonets and Nataliia Ishchenko decided to help the man and started a fundraising campaign.

If you want to help Mykhailo stay on his feet, you can provide a donation to a bank card:

4149 4393 1123 8285 (cardholder name: Kordonets Sofia).

A report on the use of funds will be provided thereafter.

ЧИТАЙТЕ ТАКОЖ:

• Statelessness in Ukraine: scope and causes of the problem
• Stateless Determination Procedure in Ukraine: First applications are being considered in Kyiv and Severodonetsk
• Passport for the sake of the daughter’s happy future. The story of Lida