Cape Town mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis has announced that the City Hall will be illuminated tonight in blue and yellow — the colours of the flag of Ukraine, as a symbol of our solidarity with the people of the European nation.
According to Hill-Lewis, he wrote to Mr Vitali Klitschko, the Mayor of Kyiv, to express the City of Cape Town’s (COCT) solidarity with the struggle Ukraine’s capital city and indeed the whole of Ukraine is facing.
Hill-Lewis said he informed Klitschko that the COCT stands alongside other nations and cities around the free world in calling for peace in Ukraine and an end to Russian imperialist aggression.
“The people of Kyiv are proud, patriotic and resilient people who have endured a long history of conflict. They have built their city into a prosperous economic and cultural hub, one that faces destruction at this very moment,” Hill-Lewis said.
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The gesture of illuminating Cape Town’s City Hall in Kyiv’s colours will also serve as a reminder of the torment the city and its residents are facing.
Through this small gesture, the Mayor called on our national government and other governments around the world to do more for peace to be restored and for the unprovoked and illegal aggression against the Ukrainian people to be halted.
“As leaders and human beings, we must always take a firm stand against imperialism and the violence that brings, and I will not hesitate to continue to spread the message of peace and solidarity as far and as wide as possible,” Hill-Lewis reiterated.
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