The number of children in need of urgent humanitarian assistance in war-torn eastern Ukraine has reached a million – almost double the number at the same time last year, according to a report from UNICEF.
“This is an invisible emergency – a crisis most of the world has forgotten,” said Giovanna Barberis, UNICEF‘s representative in the nation, in a statement issued late last week. “Children in eastern Ukraine have been living under the constant threat of unpredictable fighting and shelling for the past three years. Their schools have been destroyed, they have been forced from their homes and their access to basic commodities like heat and water has been cut off.”
The conflict in eastern Ukraine, now entering its fourth year, has seen an additional 420,000 children need urgent humanitarian assistance over the past year. UNICEF says the conflict has seen as many as 1.7 million people displaced from their homes and notes many families have lost incomes, social benefits and access to healthcare amid rising living costs.
Daily ceasefire violations are putting children’s physical and psychological well-being at risk and UNICEF says the situation is “particularly grave” for some 200,000 girls and boys who live within 15 kilometres of the ‘contact line’ which divides government and non-government controlled areas where fighting is most severe. This includes some 19,000 who face constant danger from landmines and other unexploded bombs and 12,000 who live in communities shelled at least once a month. One in five schools in eastern Ukraine – some 740 – have been damaged or destroyed.
UNICEF, which is appealing for $US31.3 million to provide emergency aid to children and families affected by the conflict, has repeated calls for all sides to the conflict to immediately recommit to a ceasefire agreement signed in August, 2015.
“After three horrific years, children in eastern Ukraine urgently need lasting peace, so that their unnecessary suffering ends” said Ms Barberis.
