{"id":249062,"date":"2026-01-17T05:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T05:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/249062\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T05:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T05:32:12","slug":"fund-aims-to-help-return-kateryna-from-cork-to-family-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/249062\/","title":{"rendered":"Fund aims to help return Kateryna from Cork to family in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">A GoFundMe appeal has been launched to repatriate the body of a Ukrainian teenager who had only just moved to Ireland to \u201cstart a new life\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Kateryna Tovstyk, who died last month, had arrived in Ireland last July, was working in a West Cork hotel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The 18-year-old came over to Ireland to join her brother Illia and his partner, Oleksandra, at their home in Clonakilty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">They had been living there since 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Before her death, Kateryna was working alongside Illia at the Clonakilty Park Hotel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The hotel\u2019s HR manager Maria Carolan, who has organised the fundraiser, said: \u201cThey were delighted to welcome her as she began an exciting time starting out in life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cUnfortunately, at the end of December, Kateryna died unexpectedly at the young age of 18.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cKateryna and Illia\u2019s colleagues at Clonakilty Park Hotel are devastated by the loss, and along with people locally, have asked how they can help at this truly heartbreaking time for Illia and his family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Of her memories of Kateryna, Ms Carolan said: \u201cShe was a very quiet, very unassuming, and very mannerly girl.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cShe always had a lovely smile and was a very hard worker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cShe had come over here to live and just wanted to start a new life over here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cIt is just so sad that she was only with us for such a short space of time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cThis Gofundme has been set up with the family\u2019s agreement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cIllia and his family also sadly lost their father just over a year ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            \u201cWe can\u2019t take away the heartache of Illia losing his sister, but we can try and ease the financial burden of the Tovstyk family.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cIllia and Oleksandra have been making the difficult decisions and arrangements for the burial of Kateryna and her repatriation to Ukraine. This is a long and difficult journey, considering the complications of getting to Ukraine at the moment. Once home, she will be met by her grieving mother.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">She said that any donation \u2014 \u201cno matter the size\u201d \u2014 will make a difference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Ms Carolan also asked people to share details of the fundraiser with friends and family as \u201cthis would be greatly appreciated by Kateryna\u2019s family, friends, and work colleagues\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">As of Thursday afternoon, \u20ac7,571 had been raised of the \u20ac12,000 target of the fundraiser, which was published on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Details of her funeral have yet to be published, as the family is still trying to work out the logistics of returning Kateryna back to her mother in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">While a local undertaker is assisting the family with the international repatriation process, documentation needs to be arranged with the Ukrainian embassy in Dublin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Arrangements also have to be made with a firm of undertakers in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n             <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/kateryna-tovstyk\">https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/kateryna-tovstyk<\/a>\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A GoFundMe appeal has been launched to repatriate the body of a Ukrainian teenager who had only just&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,61,60,43,2040,620],"class_list":["post-249062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-ukraine","tag-west-cork"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}