Water levels have begun to fall in the region hit by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, in southern Ukraine, but more than 25,000 homes have been damaged and the number of displaced people continues to rise, it was announced on Friday.
According to a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), four days after the incident, “flooding began to subside, although the disaster continues to lead to displacement and increasing humanitarian needs”.
In the Ukrainian-controlled areas of the Khersonska region, 320 people have been evacuated from their homes in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of people displaced to more than 2,500, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), quoted by OCHA.
Still in the Kiev-controlled region, nearly 40 towns and cities were “severely affected by the flooding, with more than 3,620 homes reported damaged so far.”
Moscow-backed authorities in that region announced on Friday that the number of flooded homes had risen to more than 22,000, with “serious humanitarian consequences for thousands of people”.
According to information released this Friday by Ukrainian and Russian authorities, the floods have already killed 13 people.
OCHA’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, this Friday led an interagency humanitarian convoy carrying additional supplies to the town of Bilozerka, in one of the Ukrainian-controlled areas “most affected by flooding”.
“Humanitarian aid workers continue their efforts to increase humanitarian aid, reaching more than 30,000 people with critical assistance, mainly food and water,” OCHA highlights in its report.
The destruction of the dam at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine is already considered one of the biggest industrial and environmental disasters in Europe in recent decades.
Ukraine and Russia blame each other for destroying the dam built on the Dnieper River in the 1950s.
Since the start of the war, the UN has confirmed that there have been 8,983 civilian casualties, of which 879 were victims of landmines and other unexploded ordnance, including 94 children, and 15,442 were injured, underlining that these numbers are far from be real.
The military offensive launched by Russia in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has also led to the flight of more than 14.7 million people – 6.5 million internally displaced people and more than 8.2 million to European countries – so far , according to the latest data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
Source: DN
