Amazon launches ‘humanitarian aid hub’ to help Ukrainian refugees

To help get supplies quickly to Ukrainian refugees, Amazon has reconfigured a warehouse in Slovakia from a center to fill customer orders to one collecting, preparing and distributing donated supplies.

Amazon announced Tuesday it had converted nearly 54,000 square feet of warehouse space in Slovakia to create a new “humanitarian aid hub,” according to a blog post on the company’s website.

The new warehouse space will connect a network of fulfillment centers across Europe to move donated blankets, clothing, hygiene items and other shelter materials. That network is preparing and delivering 4 million donations of critical supplies, Amazon said.

“Launching this hub in less than 10 days was a huge team effort and it’s gratifying to see much-needed supplies already flowing through and making their way to people in need,” Amazon wrote in its blog post. “We’re thankful to our customers for their generosity and to our teams and our partners for their work and dedication to supporting refugees at this critical time, and we know this will be a long-term effort.”

As donations come to Amazon’s network of facilities in Europe, the company ships them to the hub in Slovakia. From there, donations are distributed to refugees through partnerships with Save the Children, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

The hub is meant to “expedite the movement of relief supplies” through Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova and Czech Republic, Amazon said.

Amazon announced earlier this month that it would suspend shipment of retail products to customers in Russia and Belarus, as well as no longer accept new customers based in those countries through its program for third-party sellers or Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing and infrastructure arm of its business. It suspended access to Prime Video for customers based in Russia and stopped taking orders for New World, a video game, sold directly in Russia.

Amazon does not have offices, data centers or infrastructure in Russia.

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