The WHO once again alerts about the situation in Ukraine, since temperatures drop significantly and part of the energy infrastructure is destroyed.
Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, described on Tuesday on BFMTV as a “phenomenal threat to Ukrainians” the current situation of the country’s energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said on Friday that “half” of Ukraine’s energy system “has been put out of order.” Since October, Russia has attacked these infrastructures in numerous attacks.
“How can hospitals function without power and without electricity?” asks Hans Kluge on BFMTV. “It’s really a humanitarian disaster”, he also believes himself.
And to add: “people will die of strokes, heart attacks, acute respiratory infections.”
More than 700 attacks on health facilities
It calls on BFMTV to the international community to provide Ukraine with generators and fuel and, in the longer term, to “avoid a collapse of public services” with “financial support to pay for salaries and medicines.”
According to him, the WHO has registered more than 700 attacks on Ukrainian health facilities and ambulances since the start of the Russian invasion in February, constituting “a significant violation” of international humanitarian law.
Mental health and sexual violence
The director of WHO Europe also deplores the lack of access to the territories occupied by Russia, such as Donetsk, Luhansk and Mariupol and calls for a humanitarian corridor to these regions.
He also underlines the impact of the war on the mental health of the country’s inhabitants: “even people in the liberated territories are suspicious when they see a Ukrainian soldier.” The extent of sexual violence suffered by women in Ukraine must also be “studied”, adds the senior WHO official. After collecting testimonies on this subject, the one who is currently in Ukraine believes that “here is horror.”
On Monday, he said winter would threaten the lives of millions of Ukrainians. The damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure “is already having devastating effects on the health system and the health of the population,” Kluge added.
This means that “hundreds of hospitals and health centers are no longer fully operational,” he told reporters. “We expect two to three million more people to leave their homes in search of warmth and safety.”
Source: BFM TV
