UN Launches $5.6 Billion Appeal Fund For Ukraine
By EPHRAIM NWOSU
The United Nations on Wednesday announced that $5.6 billion is urgently needed to help support millions of of people inside Ukraine whose lives have been torn apart by the Russian invasion.This much was disclosed by UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martins Griffiths while addressing journalists in Geneva.
“The situation for many in Ukraine remains desperate amid “relentless” shelling of civilian targets and infastructure,” Griffiths lamented.
He continued:”One year of full-scale war in Ukraine has devastated the lives of millions of people. As humanitarian needs grow, they count on the international community’s continued support and solidarity
“Humanitarian funding is needed to continue supporting life-saving aid convoy deliveries to communities on the frontline, into areas of great danger and difficulty and priority needs.
“To continue doing this life-saving work, $3.9 billion is needed to help about 11.1 million of the 18 million people who need humanitarian assistance inside Ukraine.”
In parallel with OCHA appeal, UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is also seeking $1.7 billion to help Ukrainian refugees in 10 host countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lavia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
Meanwhile, UNHCR High Commissioner, Filippo Grandi has warmed against complacency about what is happening in Ukraine.
“I think we are becoming a little bit used to this; we shouldn’t, because it’s quite appalling what the Russian invasion is doing to the country,” he said.
Describing a recent official visit to Ukraine, the UNHCR chief added that since the year Russian battle groups crossed the border (24 February, 2022), civilian infastructure in Ukraine had continued to come under constant attack, leaving nurseries “flattened and old people living in cellars because of the danger of bombing.”
Refugees from the conflict have every intention of returning to Ukraine at some point, Grandi continued, but until that happens, he posited that Tuesday’s Refugee Response Plan appeal will continue to help millions of refugees and hundreds of UN partners on ground.
In particular, funding will support health and nutrition services, education, livelihoods and temporary protection, the High Commissioner explained.
“The Ukraine refugee crisis-displacement-crisis remains the largest in the world, clearly,” he added.
“Almost six million estimated internally displaced people, plus you, know, the refugees in Europe who have registered for temporary protection are close to five million now, 4.8 million. But we know that there are many more that have not.”
Amid report that violence is escalating in the east, latest UN estimates indicated that more than 7,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine in the last year, with 12,000 injured.
” This is almost a low estimate,” Grandi enthused. When asked about UN-led efforts to secure an extension of a deal to delivery of fertilizers and foodstuffs from Ukraine and Russia to the many countries that need them all over the world, the veteran aid official insisted that, ” the Global South and international food security needs that operation to continue.”
More than 21.3 million tonnes of corn, wheat, oil and other comestibles have been slipped across the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which should be allowed to continue, the UN chieftain further pointed out.
“We don’t need it stopped in the middle of March and I hope-I hope and believe, actually- that it would be extended. And that is because it’s an obvious case for international humanitarian security.”
