“There has been a very clear increase in fighting over the last few months,” said Denise Brown, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine.
“On my last trip to Ukraine two weeks ago, there were 12 sirens during the day and 12 explosions. Daily life in the city of Kharkiv is frequently disrupted,” she told journalists in Geneva.
The Russian military launched a new offensive into the Kharkiv region on May 10, seizing the town of Vovchansk and stepping up air attacks on the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest urban center, with about a million people fearing for their lives.
Millions of people are hurt
A total of nearly ten million people – including children – are estimated by the World Health Organization to be at risk of acute Post Traumatic Syndrome (PTSD) in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, about 4 million children across the country have had their education interrupted, and 600,000 of them cannot access in-person school. UNICEFUnited Nations Children’s Fund.
Underground driving
“In the city of Kharkiv, the only way children can study safely is in the underground tunnels of the subway,” said Ms. Brown, who witnessed this recently when she together with the city’s mayor visited the underground tunnel.
“My initial reaction was that the classrooms looked like normal classrooms: full of children, teachers, full of the energy and enthusiasm that children have. My second thought was: ‘but this isn’t normal’. It is not normal for children to have to study underground.”
Ms. Brown recently attended the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, where 14 countries and international organizations continued to advocate for recovery, reconstruction and reform in Ukraine.
When asked about participating in the upcoming Ukrainian peace conference hosted by Switzerland at the Bürgenstock resort this weekend, she clarified that “The UN is an observer, not a member state. So whoever goes will be in listening mode.”
Hope for ‘a just peace’
She echoed the views of the United Nations Secretary General when she said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “violation of principles”. uncharted.”
“We hope for a just peace for Ukraine,” Ms. Brown said, “and as I said many times in my speech, The rest of the world should not normalize the war in Ukraine.”
After 28 months of war, the scale of humanitarian needs is enormous. More than 32,000 civilian casualties, including 11,000 dead, have been verified – but the actual number is likely much higher.
30% of pre-war jobs were eliminated and poverty increased from 5% to 25%. More than 14.6 million people, 40% of the population, will need humanitarian assistance by 2024.
The humanitarian community has called for $3.1 billion to provide life-saving assistance to 8.5 million of the most vulnerable people by 2024.
