The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued an urgent appeal on Friday for access to sick and injured people caught up in the war in Ukraine, including “hundreds” of landmine victims, “premature babies, pregnant woman, older people, many of whom have been left behind”.
More than four and half months since Russia’s invasion, civilians have continued to be targeted in explosions and missile strikes, particularly in eastern cities including Donetsk, Sloviansk, Makiivka, Oleksandrivka and Yasynuvata, but also in southern oblasts, in Odessa and Mykolaiv.
Senior UN officials have long called for humanitarian corridors to be established to enable the safe and constant delivery of assistance to extremely vulnerable populations in Ukraine.
But Ocha, the UN aid coordination wing, has frequently signalled that access in many places remains too dangerous or is blocked.
“I am sure that once there will be corridors, we will be there,” said Dr. Nitzan, speaking via video link in Odessa to journalists in Geneva.
“So, the fact that there are no corridors speaks to itself, surely all of us, asking in (a) different form, please, let us in.”
The perilous situation continues to hamper life-saving aid operations, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which described how medical services in many places were now “seriously stretched”.
Speaking from Odessa, Dr. Dorit Nitzan, WHO Ukraine Crisis Incident Manager, warned that others in need of immediate help included those with chronic but preventable illnesses.
“The people who have not been able to receive early diagnosis and treatment for cancer, who now have much more advanced tumours and more critical illness,” she said.
“People who have not been able to receive medications for hypertension and now have failing hearts or have suffered strokes. Diabetics, who could not get treatment and whose disease is now severe.”
