(lubavitch.com) The greater Chabad community mourned the sudden death, Sunday, of Rabbi Yossie Raichik, director of Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl (CCOC).

Raichik, 55, passed away from a severe lung infection. In 1989, at the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s behest, Raichik founded CCOC, to evacuate those Ukrainians suffering from the radioactive aftereffects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident three years earlier.

This past summer, the organization coordinated its 81st airlift to Israel, bringing the total number of evacuees to 4,888.

Raichik, the son of Chabad representatives to Los Angeles, was also responsible for rescuing hundreds of Jews from Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. Raichik is buried in a Jerusalem cemetery and is survived by his wife Dina, their children, and his siblings.