Sandi Curk, a prominent Slovenian civil protection official who played a major role in helping Ukrainian refugees in Slovenia, is among this year's 38 recipients of the European Citizen's Prize.

Curk, the head of the Notranjska unit of the Administration for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief, helped provide accommodation for 120 Ukrainian refugees, including orphans, who were displaced due to Russian aggression.

He was in charge of finding accommodation for mothers and their underage children in Postojna in the Notranjska region.

As a coordinator between local communities and state authorities, he also played a major role in other municipalities at the start of the Ukraine war, in what the European Parliament said was an expression of European solidarity and common values.

"Sandi Curk [...] is a man with a capital M, philanthropist, volunteer and humanitarian at heart," according to the European Parliament.

Curk had previously participated in many other humanitarian campaigns, including efforts to help Bosnian and Kosovo refugees in the 1990s, and victims of recent earthquakes in Croatia and Turkey.

The annual European Citizen's Prize rewards projects run by citizens and organisations in the EU which demonstrate European cooperation, mutual understanding, the promotion of European common values and fundamental rights.

Curk was nominated by European People's Party MEP Ljudmila Novak and almost all Slovenian MEPs subsequently endorsed the candidacy.