Иллюстрация: @proevac
The evacuation team created more than five years ago and working jointly with BYSOL is continuing its activities independently as the ProEvac initiative as of today, representatives of the initiative told Reform.news. The move concerns part of the team, while the evacuation service within BYSOL will continue its work, BYSOL clarified.
“We are preserving our previous mission, approaches, and safety standards. Supporting people who are in danger remains our main priority. You can still contact us via Telegram,” they said. “Previous contacts and mechanisms continue to function as usual, in the format of the independent ProEvac initiative. We are grateful to everyone who trusts us. Do not wait—if you or your loved ones are in danger, contact us.”
For contact, they provided the following details:
Fyodor – @dogen_free
Pasha – @evac_help
An evacuation request can be submitted here.
“We have built a sustainable assistance system, worked out security protocols, and gained significant practical experience in evacuating people from high-risk zones. It is important for us to maintain the ability for independent development. The evacuation direction within BYSOL continues to operate in its own format,” the activists noted.
Will BYSOL Continue Evacuations?
Reform.news contacted BYSOL to ask whether this means the initiative is stopping evacuations from Belarus. In short, no—the evacuation service within BYSOL remains in place.
“Indeed, part of the evacuation team has decided to develop its own ProEvac initiative. However, this does not mean that BYSOL will no longer evacuate people from Belarus who face danger. We have all the necessary resources and specialists to continue this work. As before, to contact our Evacuation Service, one needs to fill out an application, the link to which is published on our website. That is, nothing changes for recipients of assistance,” said Dzmitry Yahorau, a representative of BYSOL.
Yahorau sees the reasons for the ProEvac team’s departure from BYSOL as a “divergence in vision.”
“After the crisis (the story involving Andrej Stryzhak – Reform.news note), we held meetings on the strategic development of different directions—fundraising, evacuation, and so on. There is no conflict; there are differences in vision. Unfortunately, I cannot share details here. The team decided to continue developing the initiative independently. By the way, Evac has always been relatively autonomous within the organization,” he explained.