UN agencies and their partners are providing support to thousands of people from the Kharkiv region in Ukraine who have been evacuated from frontline areas where intensive Russian air strikes continue.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said vulnerable boys and girls are among those arriving at a humanitarian hub in the main city, Kharkiv.
They include children with disabilities and those who had been living with foster families and will now need to be placed in new homes.
Fresh fighting along the frontline in Ukraine has again driven thousands of civilians from their homes and villages near the country’s second largest city, Kharkiv, close to the Russian border.
Fresh air strikes continue in Ukraine, where around 16,000 have been forced to evacuate from villages in the Kharkiv region near the border with Russia, since 10 May, according to the UN aid coordination office (OCHA).
The plight of civilians affected by war in 2023 was “resoundingly dire”, as the world witnessed horrors not only in Gaza and southern Israel but also the intense suffering of populations in other crisis hotspots around the globe, senior UN officials said on Tuesday.
The UN expressed new concerns on Tuesday over a rise in displacement and humanitarian needs in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region amid “relentless” Russian air and ground attacks.
Daily attacks by the Russian military in Ukraine have damaged dozens of towns and villages in the south and east of the country but also in central areas - including the city of Dnipro, which was shelled again early this Friday, UN humanitarians said.
An array of military hardware has been deployed against heavily populated areas, such as drones and a new, frightening threat: relatively inexpensive glide bombs that can fly up to 80 kilometres and cause heavy damage.
