WUNRN
UKRAINE – CONFLICT CONTINUES – WOMEN’S PAIN & SUFFERING DEEPEN – VILLAGES, LIVES, DREAMS DESTROYED - HEADLINES MOVE ON
OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine – July 15, 2015
In Marinka (government-controlled, 23km south-west of
Donetsk) the SMM observed approximately 100 people, predominantly elderly
women, queuing to receive humanitarian aid from the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.
The SMM were told by some present that aid had arrived for the first time since
May, and that these food packages were distributed to those older than 65. In
the north-eastern part of Marinka, residents told the SMM that they had to
leave their houses in haste due to a military clash between armed “DPR” members
and Ukrainian Armed Forces on 3 June. They said they were accommodated in other
parts of the village and that they had not been able to return to their homes.
International Crisis Group
UKRAINE - 1 Jul
2015 - Month saw heaviest fighting since Feb, including clashes between army
and separatists near Maryinka and Krasnohorivka towns west of Donetsk 3 June,
leaving at least 26 dead and reportedly involving heavy artillery; separatist
commanders described fighting as counter-attack in response to constant
Ukrainian “provocations”.
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http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50377#.VajKmPmqqko
Residents walk along the main road of Nikishino village in eastern Ukraine. Photo: UNHCR Andrew McConnell
19 March 2015 – Women, children and the elderly are
disproportionately bearing the devastating impact of the protracted conflict in
Ukraine, which has left five million people in need of humanitarian assistance,
senior United Nations officials said today, as they stressed the “grave and
urgent need” to scale up international relief efforts.
Accessing vulnerable populations and lack of funding remain the
two biggest obstacles to getting the help to where it is needed most, John
Ging, Director of Operations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA), told a press
conference in New York.
Fresh off a multi-agency visit to Ukraine and Nigeria, Mr. Ging,
who was joined by Afshan Khan, Director at the Office of Emergency Programmes,
UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), called his trip
an “unprecedented mission.”
“We saw the first-hand consequences of conflict. Five million
people are in need of human assistance, including 3.2 million who are highly
vulnerable. Some 1.7 million people have fled their homes and over one million
are internally displaced,” he said.
Mr. Ging described how temporary orders to restrict movement of
people and goods across the conflict line were severely hampering efforts to
get aid to those in need. Residents in affected regions of Donetsk and Luhansk
have not received their salaries since July 2014.
Elderly homes, psychological centres and orphanages are in need
of critical, even lifesaving supplies. Pensions are not being paid, further
compounding the suffering of the elderly.
“The only means that communities have to survive at the moment
is basically through their coping mechanisms which are being exhausted very
quickly,” Mr. Ging warned, emphasizing that many health clinics have closed and
medical personnel have fled.
Some 1.4 million people require health care and the centres that
are open are struggling to care for the sick who were moved from damaged and
destroyed clinics, in addition to treating those wounded from the conflict. In
Donetsk, 77 out of the 350 health centres have been damaged or destroyed.
“We have witnessed and have also been told of real shortages of
basic medical supplies such as cancer drugs, pain killers and even
antibiotics,” Mr. Ging said, stressing that “all of this is leading to real
human suffering.”
He warned of the long-term consequences of the protracted
crisis: “No child has been vaccinated since this conflict began and again it’s
the children that are the most vulnerable and are bearing the brunt here.”
Mr. Ging also cited the increasing danger of unexploded
ordinance, as well as the fact that the banking system has been cut off again
to non-government controlled areas – additional obstacles to delivering
humanitarian support and paying staff salaries.
The UN already has a significant humanitarian operation under
way in Ukraine, delivering medicine, blankets, food, hygiene kits, and
household items to those in need. But more needs to be done, the officials
stressed, noting that they only have five per cent of the $316 million sought
for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. “It is very clear to us that we have to
scale up the international component to this response,” said Mr. Ging.
Expanding more on the plight of children in Ukraine, Ms. Khan
said that 1.7 million of them bear the brunt of the emergency, including
140,000 who have been internally displaced. She warned that the displacement
numbers are likely “much higher” because people, and particularly children, are
hesitant to register as ‘displaced’ for fear of losing the right to the homes
they fled.
“Children living in or forced to flee conflict areas have
suffered enormous stress and have witnessed unimaginable violence,” she stated,
as she held up two drawings made by children at an orphanage she visited during
her mission. “These pictures are from children who are obviously traumatised
from the fighting.”
The need for the most basic services is great as well, Ms. Khan
said, recalling her visit to a bomb shelter where the water and sanitation
situation was “very disturbing.” There too, the children were impacted
psychosocially from the violence that they have experienced. But staying in a
shelter without clean water and hygiene will also have a lasting impact.
“Living in those cramped quarters is an experience no child will forget,’ she
said.
UNICEF has boosted its vaccination efforts with the planned
delivery of 4.8 million polio vaccines, the first batch by the end of April.
Also, 200,000 families and children have been educated on mine-risk. Safely
returning children to school will require the clearing of such unexploded
remnants. In addition to expanding school access, the focus must be on children
living in institutions, those with disabilities and those infected with
HIV/AIDS, she added.