In the fifth year of defending itself against Russia, Ukraine faces a deepening and ongoing humanitarian crisis in the country’s east, United Nations’ relief workers warned on Jan. 31.
Throughout the country’s eastern Donbas region, some 5.2 million Ukrainian civilians remain exposed to the dangers and misery of war, while 3.5 million are said to be in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.
According to the latest numbers from the UN humanitarian mission to Ukraine, up to 13,000 people have been killed, including an estimated 3,320 civilians, while as many as 30,000 have been injured.
Public services and civilian infrastructure remains devastated across the county’s far east, while a paralyzed economy has created widespread unemployment and extreme poverty for many families, relief workers say. The region is also gripped by a mental health crisis, with the UN saying that years of turmoil and violence has resulted in psychological trauma for thousands of people that will take years to heal.
About a third of the area of Ukraine’s eastern oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk have been occupied by Russian forces and Russian-backed militants since the Kremlin launched its war against Ukraine in March 2014, shortly after Kremlin forces invaded and occupied Crimean peninsula. Despite ongoing peace negotiations and multiple ceasefire agreements, the fighting has continued.
Ongoing humanitarian response
Launching the UN’s latest humanitarian response plan in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Jan. 31, a strategy to be implemented throughout 2019, UN relief workers said violence is still a daily “fact of life” for many residents of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
Alice Armanni Sequi, the newly-appointed head of office in Ukraine for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said that the UN planned to allocate $162 million in funding for 97 separate projects throughout 2019 to help alleviate suffering and provide vital services to 2.3 million of eastern Ukraine’s most vulnerable people.
With 5.2 million residents of eastern Ukraine regarded by the UN as vulnerable and 3.5 million in need of urgent help, OCHA’s new $162 million humanitarian response for 2019 reaches less than half of those who need assistance.
Sequi said that 51 percent of the funding, provided by donors, would be allocated to non-governmental organizations and charities who are working to provide relief to people who are still impacted by “repeated and intense hostilities.”
She added that Ukrainians in the worst-affected areas still struggle to get access to basic services; 240,000 schoolchildren and teachers are considered at high risk while two-thirds of health facilities have been rendered useless.
Throughout 2018, continued fighting that included shelling, landmine explosions and sniper fire had damaged homes, schools and hospitals, while more than 85 separate incidents had affected water, sanitation and heating systems, UN relief workers said.
“The sustained support of the international community is needed more than ever,” said Osnat Lubrani, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine.
“In 2018, more than one million vulnerable Ukrainians received critical assistance and protection services through the generous contributions of donors to the Humanitarian Response Plan. However, more could have been done if more funding had been available,” she also said.
