In the line of fire

Exchanging high finance for aid work has put Aucklander Mike Seawright at the front line of the world's war zones.

- LAWRENCE WATT

Working on the front line in increasingly battered Ukraine is no joke - yet still people joke. It might just be with a wry smile, though. Mike Seawright, founder and executive director of New Zealand-based ReliefAid, remembers a Ukrainian man he met in Bucha, whom he asked, "Were any Russian troops in your home?"

"No, the vodka was still there, so I knew they hadn't visited," the man replied with a grin.

Seawright has been home in Auckland for a stint, trying to recover from battle fatigue - the emotional fallout from working in war and disaster zones. He admits the aid sector could manage its "casualties" better, including himself. Yet he has just said goodbye to his partner, Joanne, and two teenage daughters to return to Ukraine.

He set up ReliefAid nine years ago as an aid provider specialising in helping people who live near war-zone front lines. Today, Ukraine is its biggest operation. Funded by donors, it has 13 full-time expat staff (including Kiwis) and 40 local volunteers, mostly near the front line. The agency operates in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, which has been hit by both civil war and natural disasters.

Seawright has been shocked by what he has seen in Ukraine. He believes the worst atrocities - rapes, mass murder, torture - are committed mostly by secondline troops who follow the main Russian force. The UN Commissioner for Human Rights has documented unlawful killings, including summary executions, of at least 73 civilians in Bucha, a front-line town where ReliefAid operates just 35 minutes northwest of Kyiv.

American defence specialists estimate more than 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine, many of them mercenaries working for the private Wagner Group army. International media estimate a similar number of Ukrainian soldiers have died.