UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : OCHA Press conference: Humanitarian situation In Ukraine

Good morning, everyone.

Joining this morning's press briefing with to my left here, Mathias Shmala, who is our Humanitarian Coordinator and also Resident Coordinator in Ukraine.

Just to give his full title.

He's also Assistant Secretary General in the United Nations, and he will give you some introductory remarks about the humanitarian situation and the challenges in Ukraine, and then we'll take your questions after that.

So let's hear us over to you.

This one, yes.

Thank you very much and good morning, everyone.

Joining us here and online.

The first comment I'd like to make is that on the ground in Kiev and in my extensive travels to frontline areas, this feels increasingly like a protracted war.

We have been through phases this year where there was cautious optimism that it might end.

Right now on the ground, it doesn't feel at all like it's ending anytime soon.

You also need to know that this year has been deadlier than 2024 in terms of civilian casualties, that 30% increase so far this year over last year.

I think it's also important to take on board that this is increasingly A technological war, a drone war.

Drone attacks are increasing.

What worries me as a humanitarian coordinator are two main things.

One is with the increased military pressures and attacks along the frontline, evacuations are increasing again.

We've had over the last few weeks, since August, in several parts along the frontline, waves of people leaving who had stayed 3 1/2 years plus but now feel it's too dangerous.

These are partly very vulnerable people, older people and people with limited mobility, as as they say in Ukraine.

So we really try to support that with our humanitarian work.

We of course also support people who choose to still to stay.

We have a fantastic network of NGOs, many of them Ukrainian, over 400 NGOs and at least 75% Ukrainian, who address mostly 1/3 priority, which is first response after strikes.

The strikes continue throughout the country, including in Kiev.

Again, it comes and goes in waves.

I have to say we are particularly worried about a key public service installations, healthcare.

For example, our WHO colleagues have recorded 364 attacks on healthcare facilities between January and and October this year, which is again also an increase over last year.

Some of you will have seen that a few days ago at Children's Hospital was hit in Hassan and in fact yesterday a 7 year old girl died in a hospital after a strike in Venezia.

Speaking of children, I must say a poignant moment for me was I think it was 10 days or so ago in Kharkiv.

I was there actually for a discussion all day with university students about the situation in Ukraine and the work of of the UNA.

Very good discussion.

And as we were meeting underground in one of the oldest universities in Ukraine, in Kharkiv, 3 missiles, it seems Shahid went into a kindergarten and I went there, you know, and that was a poignant moment.

Even though no child was killed or injured, they were in safety and then taken to safety.

I just imagined as a parent, you drop your children in the morning at a kindergarten, you then get called back 2 1/2 hours later, you know, and, and to pick up your traumatised children who've just experienced 3 missiles hitting their kindergarten.

So this notion of safety for vulnerable people and children is is really being violated all the time.

Two more points maybe if I May 1 is as is winter has started.

We are particularly worried about the continuous attacks on the energy production capacities and energy distribution facilities, including gas.

You know, if the winter is much colder than last year, as is for the moment anticipated, if the energy destruction continues and the rate of recovery and does not hold up with the rate of destruction we are very worried about, especially people living in high rise buildings in cities near the front line that could turn into a major crisis.

I'm not sure anyone is really prepared for that.

Having said that, we are doing a lot as a humanitarian system, UN and the many NGOs to support winter through people through the winter with cash payments and what we call a solid fuel.

And then finally as introductory remarks, what I think is often overlooked is the mental health crisis.

So I've just talked about the energy terror as some people call it, because destroying energy production and distribution capacity as winter starts as clearly impacts the the civilian population and as a form of terror.

The the continued strikes throughout the country also give a sense of nowhere is safe.

And I really in my almost 1 1/2 years there feel and sense that the mental health impact of this war is increasing again.

We're doing a lot as a humanitarian and development community to help individuals, communities and the authorities to, to cope with then it is important that we sustain funding.

You know, we at this, this year, we are at the end of October, last day of October at 40% of what we asked for.

That is still compared to other crises, not so bad, but it's not enough.

And I I am particularly worried about the impact of funding cuts on the many NGOs that work near the front line and address in particular the needs and concerns of vulnerable groups, including mental health issues, including gender based violence, including people who survived the conflict related sexual violence.

So my appeal to the international community, of course, is with all the other crises going on, don't forget Ukraine.

The war is not over and we need predictable funding to continue the fantastic work that the humanitarian community is carrying out.

Thank you so much, Matthias.

As usual, just raise your hand so I can give you the flow online.

But let me take from here first, Robin from AFP news agency to you.

[Other language spoken]

The the rise in in civilian deaths this year that you spoke about, what's, what do you attribute that to?

Is it that civilians themselves are actually being targeted?

And, and secondly, our, our health in your, in your eyes, our, our health facilities and other vital bits of humanitarian infrastructure like that as you see it, are they actually now specifically being targeted?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for the question.

Listen, I, I, it would be speculative on my part if I said these are both the civilians being killed and injured.

Is, is the result of deliberate targeting as well as the facilities, public service facilities like healthcare.

I don't know if this is deliberate.

I can only talk to you about the impact on civilian life.

That's one bit.

I can also say as humanitarian coordinator and the senior UN representative in Ukraine that to the best of my understanding, the full scale invasion violates the UN Charter, violates the territorial integrity of of Ukraine.

Our Secretary General has been very clear.

So the impact on the civilians is massive and in, in my view, violates international humanitarian law.

But I cannot say, you know, with evidence that all of the attacks are deliberate targets, deliberately targeting.

Thank you very much.

Let me just see online if there are any questions.

I'll give you a second to get your coffee in and we have a follow up from Robin.

[Other language spoken]

The the lack of lack of funds that you spoke of, Can you give us some sort of concrete ideas as to what that will mean for people on the ground as we go into another winter in Ukraine in wartime?

[Other language spoken]

Let let me first of all just outline the trend.

So in 2022 we had over 4 billion U.S.

dollars for humanitarian work in Ukraine.

23 it was still 2.6 last year, remarkably 2024, you know with everything else going on in the world, still 2.2.

This year we stand at 1.1.

So, so far half of what we got last year and and with two months to go.

So there is a clear downward trend that we are experiencing in Ukraine.

What will be the impact?

I think the impact with that we're beginning to see is in particular for on, on our capacity to support the most vulnerable.

There are now a few thousand older people and people with limited mobility stuck in transit and collective centres with nowhere to go.

And we just do not have the funding, nor does the the government to, to accompany these people on the on the their full evacuation journey until they reach not just transit places that are safer than the front line, but a more durable solution.

That that's one key bit.

I think a second bit is energy.

Now there is just not enough resources to keep pace with a constant destruction of energy capacity.

I think we are doing relatively well as a humanitarian community reaching rural communities near the front line with cash payments and solid fuel.

For the moment we're doing OK there.

There's we don't have enough, but it's not at crisis levels.

What would be crisis is if, as I indicated earlier, we have a harsh winter and have people in cities like Zaporicha or Hakiev or Nipro near the front line.

We have in cities like that citizens in high rise apartment buildings stuck without electricity or safe water for days on end.

There is no way that with the available resources, we would be able to respond to a major crisis within a crisis.

Thank you very much.

I just want to want to say that there was some some numbers and and locations and we hope to send those notes around to you to support your reporting.

Let me just see online when we have I don't see any hands raised and and nothing more from you, Robin.

Thank you for coming this morning.

I'm going to give it a last second.

[Other language spoken]

Here in my you.

[Other language spoken]

OK, confusion about the time.

So my question is about how I mean the proportion of people of beneficiary of aid in Ukraine and how much of them are people living in cities and towns close to the to the front lines.

You mentioned now some of of that, but I would like to to be more precise on numbers, how many people you help, people living there and what is their situation?

How can you describe after more than three years the situation there and how the situation developed all over this time?

[Other language spoken]

So a couple of things that I'm aware of and then as Jens indicated, we'll send around some information with further facts and and data.

I think I mentioned earlier that the vulnerable people near the front line, mainly in rural areas is about half a million to the best of my knowledge.

[Other language spoken]

Many of them stay for different reasons, attachment to land, lack of alternatives.

Many of them are vulnerable older people, people with limited mobility.

So these half a million people are a clear priority both for government and us.

The the central government recently gave out as one of its key priorities to support the so-called frontline oblast frontline regions.

Then a second group of people were worried about are the ID PS, the internally displaced people.

These are now three and a half million in number at least across the country.

In my understanding at least 50% are still close staying in the east and some have self evacuated, have moved on their own, have found cope ways of coping by being with family and other means.

But a significant number of those, I cannot tell you an exact proportion, but several 100,000 are vulnerable.

And within that group, again I mentioned a few people are stuck as I called it in collective sites or institutions.

Those are at least 20,000 people.

So there is there is 20,000 people that are that have no support right now and are stuck in collective centres.

So that's a particular group that we are worried about.

I cannot tell you what the proportion of vulnerable people in cities are.

You know that that would be relatively easy to calculate.

I know that the authorities are doing contingency planning and and the the cities that are of particular concern are Zaporicha.

In my memory, there's about 800,000 people left in Zaporicha and they are potentially all vulnerable because there's constant shelling strikes.

There has son is another hotspot in the war against Ukraine.

To my memory, there's about two to 300,000 people there.

Again, I think it's, you know, safe to assume all of them are vulnerable.

The last time I visited, the governor said there hasn't been a day this year without shelling attacks from the armed forces of the Russian Federation.

Kharkiv, if I remember, is a city of more than a million that's 40 kilometres away from a major Russian base on the on the other side of the front line.

So again, it's, you know, is, is the entire city vulnerable?

Probably if the attacks on energy continue and Kharkiv city were cut off from energy, meaning heating and water, then we have several 100,000 people that we would be having to worry about.

[Other language spoken]

Please do you see or there are people crossing the front line still?

I mean, is this possible nowadays or everything is stuck there and or some people are fleeing still coming to the government controlled part of the country?

That's an important question.

I I think with the longer this takes, the more we are at risk of forgetting the vulnerable people in the so-called occupied territories, temporarily occupied territories.

As we are preparing our plans and budgets for next year, we are making a reasonable assumption that about a million people are vulnerable in the so-called temporarily occupied territories.

Your specific question, are they coming across?

There is only one point where they can cross directly and my human rights colleagues tell me it's a trickle.

It's a handful of people that have come this year through that opening.

So it's basically, you know, negligible in terms of numbers.

The majority of people who do still come across have to undertake a very hazardous journey through other states.

What worries?

I don't know the exact numbers there.

It's, it's a couple of hundreds in, in my memory that that come across that way.

The big worry there at the moment is that I'm I'm told again by our human rights colleagues that do fantastic work in terms of documenting the violations that happen in war, including attacks on citizenship.

So my understanding is that the occupying forces are insisting that Ukrainians are now registering for Russian documents in the occupied territories and if they don't do so, they will be considered illegal and are subject to either deportation or arrest.

So, you know, it's not sort of the classical human humanitarian situation like I described earlier for the government controlled part of Ukraine.

It is more the attacks on fundamental rights that is happening and the impact that might have if this continues.

[Other language spoken]

Very much, Mathias.

[Other language spoken]

I don't see any hands up and I don't see any hands up in the room.

So I want to say thank you very much for for that.

I know you're going to a member state briefing now, so good luck with that.

Thank you all for participating this morning.

OCHA Press conference: Humanitarian situation In Ukraine - 31 October 2025