UKRAINE, KHARKIV OBLAST, May 9 — On May 6, two British volunteers died in an explosion near Izium, a city in the southeast of Kharkiv Oblast. One of them was Chris Garrett, founder of Prevail Humanitarian Aid organization.

Prevail Humanitarian Aid provides support to Ukrainian government agencies with landmines and unexploded ordnance clearance, trauma medical care, and humanitarian assistance. Garrett become a volunteer in Ukraine in 2014, after the start of Russian aggression.

Shaun Pinner, a former British soldier and Ukrainian marine, said that three team members, including Garrett, were severely injured in a mine-clearing incident near Izium. In a follow-up message, he confirmed that Garrett was among two people who had died from injuries.

“We are still gathering information and working alongside military and police officials to uncover the details,” he said.

In 2022, Garrett talked about his work as a foreign volunteer who helped dispose of explosives littering the abandoned battlefields around Kyiv in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

“You just know that with every single munition that you’re removing — every bit of unexploded ordinance, you are removing a hazard for someone else. And the bulk of the time it’s civilians that are getting hurt long after the war is finished,” he said.

Kharkiv Oblast is one of the most mined regions. Specialists identified 399 contaminated territories across 1656 hectares of the region, and only 150 hectares of them have been cleared so far.

On May 6, the “HALO Trust” nonprofit organization passed on to communities ownership of 18 demined agricultural territories.

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