The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says it is alarmed by the impact of hostilities in Ukraine on hospitals and health workers, amid shelling of areas along the front lines. According to a UN spokesman, a hospital in the city of Kherson was damaged today after being hit by shelling.
"And on Friday, at least two health workers were reportedly injured after an ambulance came under shelling in Beryslav town, in an area under Ukrainian control in the Kherson region", UN Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said in a media briefing Monday.
Since the start of the full-scale war, health facilities on both sides of the front lines in Ukraine have been destroyed or damaged. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there have been 24 attacks on health care in the first three months of this year alone. In 2022, nearly 70 percent of all attacks against health care workers worldwide happened in Ukraine.
“We once again stress that health workers and facilities must be protected under international humanitarian law”, Dujarric said.
The United Nations, alongside its humanitarian partner organizations in Ukraine, are working to keep health services running. In recent months, humanitarian convoys have delivered medicine and medical supplies to several locations along the front line in the Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. In 2022, health services were provided to some 9.4 million people in Ukraine.
In a recent report, the international humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) documented the destruction of health facilities in Ukraine and the severe impediments to medical care under Russian military occupation. MSF teams assessed the medical and humanitarian needs of people in 161 towns and villages in the Donetsk and Kherson regions to provide medical assistance.
MSF medical workers witnessed attacks on healthcare infrastructure, including cluster munitions and anti-personnel landmines. Doctors Without Borders also discovered that several medical facilities located in former Russian occupied areas in both Kherson and Donetsk region had been looted and medical vehicles including ambulances had been destroyed.
Accounts from healthcare workers and patients who lived under Russian occupation indicated severe restriction of access to essential medicines, treatment or medical facilities.
The humanitarian situation in Ukraine deteriorated rapidly in 2022, after the Russian Federation’s invasion escalated eight years of conflict in the east into a full-scale war. The devastation and destruction have been staggering, with some 40 per cent of Ukraine’s population now in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. At least 17.6 million people in Ukraine require humanitarian aid this year. Among them are 3.2 million children.
The war has also forced many to flee Ukraine, resulting in a humanitarian crisis of a scale not witnessed in Europe for decades. The war in Ukraine has led to one of the two major displacement crises in the world - the other being the Syrian civil war - with more than 13.5 million people fleeing their homes. More than 8.1 million refugees have sought refuge in foreign countries. At least 5.4 million people are displaced within Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created one of the largest humanitarian disasters globally. Violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law occurring in the course of the ongoing armed attack are widespread. Millions of civilians fear for their lives. People in Ukraine continue to be killed, wounded and deeply traumatized by the violence.
Further information
Full text: Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, transcript, April 10, 2023
https://press.un.org/en/2023/db230410.doc.htm
Full text: Between Enemy Lines. The destruction of healthcare in Ukraine, Médecins Sans Frontières, Report, March 23, 2023
https://arcg.is/1arjaP1