After a missile attack near the airport in Lviv in western Ukraine early on Friday, UN humanitarians warned that the situation across the country remains dire, following Russia’s invasion of its neighbour on 24 February.
“What happened in Lviv this morning, is nothing new, just as it was in other parts of the country, but it’s a strong reminder that this country is in war and the medical needs are increasing,” said Dr Jarno Habicht, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Ukraine.
Now in its fourth week, the war in Ukraine has seen 44 attacks on health care throughout the country, including on buildings and a warehouse, patients, staff and supply chains, resulting in 12 confirmed deaths, according to WHO data.
Despite the dangers, the UN and its partners have continued to push for humanitarian access.
“On deliveries, we have up to 100 metric tonnes made available for Ukraine,” Dr Habicht said, speaking from Lviv, adding that “at least one-third” had been dispatched to health care facilities, including in the capital Kyiv.
Underscoring the deadly danger to civilians unable to escape Russian bombardment, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) described the situation in cities such as Mariupol and Sumy as “extremely dire, with residents facing critical and potentially fatal shortages of food, water and medicine”.
That assessment followed the bombing of a theatre in Mariupol on Wednesday, targeted despite clearly visible lettering daubed on the ground outside the building, indicating that “Children” were sheltering inside.
In the country’s eastern regions, or oblasts, needs “are becoming even more urgent”, said UNHCR spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh. “More than 200,000 people are now without access to water across several localities in Donetsk oblast, while the constant shelling in Luhansk region has destroyed 80 per cent of some localities, leaving 97,800 families without power.”
In Odessa, UNHCR reported that the authorities have appealed for support for general food assistance to cover the needs of 450,000 people in the city, as well as medicine.
“As of 17 March, a permanent consultation point for protection, legal, and social matters is functioning at the Odessa railway station where 600 to 800 individuals transit daily on their way from Mykolaiv to the western oblasts of Ukraine,” the UN agency reported.
According to UNHCR, more than 3.2 million people have now fled Ukraine, and millions more are internally displaced, some of the 13 million hardest-hit by the war.
Those who have left Ukraine have found shelter in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Russia and to a much lesser extent, Belarus. Ninety per cent are women and children and 162,000 are third-country nationals.
“They don’t have a plan when they arrive,” said Mr. Saltmarsh. “So many of those in the first phase might have had friends, diaspora networks, contacts, a relative to whom they could go and stay with initially and then make a plan from there. That’s been less the case recently.”
To counter the risk of exploitation of these vulnerable new arrivals, UNHCR and UNICEF have set up safe spaces known as “Blue Dots” in six countries: Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
These facilities are “one-stop-shops, and safe spaces which provide a minimum set of
protection services for children, families and others with specific needs, in support of
existing services and government efforts,” UNHCR explained.
Also providing help to victims of the conflict, UN migration agency IOM said that last year it identified and assisted over 1,000 victims of trafficking.
IOM spokesperson Paul Dillon added that a telephone hotline that the agency set up in the last nine days has so far received more than 10,000 phone calls, more than half of which were related to trafficking concerns.
“We’re working with our many partners on the ground to ensure that these protective messages and these efforts that are being made at the border to inform people are then structured in a coherent manner, not just for the people who are coming across the borders, but for border guards and for volunteers working at these border points in reception centres and indeed for IOM staff on the ground.”
With a solid agreement on continued and safe humanitarian access still proving elusive, Jens Laerke from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) urged both sides to the armed conflict “to agree with each other a mechanism of the modalities, standard operating procedures into actually minute detail how such safe passages - either for movement of humanitarian supplies, or on the other hand, for evacuation of civilians - how that can be established”.
ends
STORY: Ukraine Crisis Update – WHO, UNHCR, OCHA
TRT: 2 mins 32s
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 18 March 2022 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Monday delivered his report on Sri Lanka to the 60th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on Monday delivered his global update to the 60th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
A UN report on the Democratic Republic of Congo raises specter of war crimes and crimes against humanity in North and South Kivu, according to UN Human Rights Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani.
1
1
1
Edited News | WMO
As billions of people continue to breathe polluted air that causes more than 4.5 million premature deaths every year, UN climate experts on Friday highlighted how damaging microscopic smoke particles from wildfires play their part, travelling half-way across the world.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
UN Human Rights Office Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence made the following comment on the on-going presidential election process in Cameroon at the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
The UN Human Rights Office released a new report on Myanmar, describing death, destruction and desperation which reflect atrocities committed in 2017.
1
1
1
Edited News | OCHA , IFRC , UNHCR
Afghanistan: Humanitarians scramble to reach survivors of deadly quake; response at ‘breaking point’
In remote eastern Afghanistan, aid workers are racing to assist survivors of Sunday’s devastating earthquake as the death toll continues to climb, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNRWA
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, repeated his urgent call for a ceasefire in Gaza on Friday, amid increased military Israeli activity in the enclave’s largest city.
1
1
1
Edited News | OCHA , WHO
Amid reports of increased Israeli military operations across Gaza City on Friday, UN aid agencies repeated urgent warnings of ongoing famine and a likely rise in preventable disease, linked to the dire living conditions in the war-shattered enclave.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
UN calls for Iran to halt executions and move towards ending the death penalty.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
The UN Human Rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan made the following comment on the killing of journalists in Gaza at the bi-weekly press briefing.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
The UN Human Rights Office on Tuesday called on Egyptian authorities to end the practice known as “rotation”, which allows Government critics to be held arbitrarily and for prolonged periods.