The humanitarian situation in Ukraine is “extremely worse” than before the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, with 700,000 people without access to clean water, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs warned.
Martin Griffiths said flooding in Ukraine, one of the world’s largest agricultural producers, will inevitably lead to lower grain exports, higher food prices and less food for millions of needy people around the world.
“But the truth is that we are only beginning to see the consequences of this act,” stressed the British man, who heads the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in an interview with the Associated news agency on Friday. Press. (THE TEA).
Griffiths said the United Nations, working mainly through Ukrainian aid groups, has managed to support 30,000 people in flooded areas under Ukrainian control.
The leader regretted that so far Russia has not allowed access to the areas it controls for the UN to help flood victims.
Griffiths said he met with Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia on Wednesday to ask Russian officials “access for our teams in Ukraine to cross the front lines to deliver relief, to support the (.. ) Ukrainians in these areas”.
In addition, the British noted that the water also poured over areas with landmines: “What we can see are these mines floating in places where people don’t expect them”, threatening adults and especially children.
According to an OCHA report, Water levels have begun to fall in the region affected by the dam’s destruction, but more than 25,000 homes have been damaged and the number of displaced people continues to rise.
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 the region reported 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 also released by Ukrainian and Russian authorities on Friday, the floods have already claimed 13 deaths.
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.
Source: DN
