(MENAFN) Deutsche Bahn, Germany's national railway company, has reportedly ended its practice of providing free transportation for humanitarian aid intended for Ukraine. The decision was allegedly made due to legal restrictions on incorporated companies offering charity, according to Der Spiegel. The magazine cited "railway circles" as its source for the information, saying that Deutsche Bahn stopped providing free transportation for such goods from January 1 of this year.
Humanitarian groups organizing the shipment of food, hygiene products, water purification equipment, and generators to Ukraine reportedly received a message from Deutsche Bahn in December 2022 notifying them of the "provisional suspension of free transport." The letter reportedly stated that as an incorporated company, the German national railway operator had a certain ceiling in terms of how much it could spend on charitable activities.
According to the outlet, several activists had petitioned the country's transport minister, Volker Wissing, to intervene in the fall of 2022, but those attempts were unsuccessful. The decision has raised concerns about the impact on aid efforts to Ukraine, which has been hit hard by economic and humanitarian crises.
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