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Ukraine

Ukraine Humanitarian Situation Report #61, July 2017

Attachments

Highlights

  • An agreement was reached on 19 July in Minsk by all parties to the conflict to create safety zones around critical civilian infrastructure including water installations. However the number of ceasefire violations increased over the last two weeks of July.3

  • UNICEF reached almost 335,000 children and their caregivers with life -saving Mine Risk Education (MRE) through dissemination of child friendly content through electronic media.

  • UNICEF continued to provide access to safe water and sanitation, reaching 63,000 people in the Eastern Conflict Area (ECA) through water trucking and emergency repair of conflict damaged infrastructure.

1,000,000 # of children in need, out of

3,800,000 # of people in need (HAC January 2017)

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) 219,394 # of children, out of 1, 580, 646 # of people registered as IDPs (Ministry of Social Policy, 27 June 2017)

UNICEF Appeal 2017 US$ 31.2 million

Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs

An agreement was reached in Minsk by all parties to the conflict on 19 July to protect civilian infrastructure along the ‘contact line.’ Following the agreement, safety zones were created around two key water installations including a key pumping station on the South Donbass Water Pipeline and Donetsk Filter Station (DFS) with no casualties. The agreement calls for the withdrawal of troops and military equipment, and the cessation of all military operations in the safety zones. However, in the last few days of July DFS was shelled. While there were no casualties reported, this represents continued targeting of civilian infrastructure. Conflict-related damage continues to put the lives of 1m children living in the ECA at risk of waterborne diseases in the hottest time of the year.

In addition, long standing debt repayment issues between electricity and water companies are further compounding the vulnerability of conflict affected populations. In July, 40,000 people reliant on water supplied by Lysychansk Vodakanal were cut off from the water system for more than a week, and had to use alternative sources of water putting children at an obvious risk of diarrhea.

Despite the 19 July agreement, the OSCE reported that the situation in eastern Ukraine remained tense with an increase in the number of ceasefire violations. The recorded use of weapons that should have been withdrawn more than doubled between 10-16 July (481 instances) compared to the week before (157 instances). The violence was concentrated around five areas: the Avdiivka-Yasynuvata-Donetsk airport area; Mariupol, Svitlodarsk, Horlivka and Popasna-Pervomaisk.

UNICEF continues to advocate with all parties to the conflict to respect and adhere to the Minsk agreements.