Today's top news: Syria, Ukraine, Sudan
Syria
Tomorrow, the European Union will convene a ministerial meeting as part of the seventh annual Conference on ‘Supporting the future of Syria and the region.’
The Secretary-General will address the opening via video message and the Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, will deliver a keynote address.
OCHA expects to hear announcements of support to our two UN-coordinated response plans for Syria and the region.
The High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi; UNDP’s Assistant Secretary-General for Partnerships; Ulrika Modeer; and Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Joyce Msuya, will also speak at the event.
Ukraine
OCHA continues to sound the alarm at the plight of civilians in the country. Increasing airstrikes and other attacks over the past few days have left a path of destruction, with people having been killed and injured.
In Odesa, an overnight strike hit a residential building, a university and shops, killing and injuring civilians, according to our UN colleagues who live in the area.
Following the attack, the Humanitarian Coordinator, Denise Brown, called for respect for international humanitarian law, stressing that today’s incident is not an isolated case. She said that since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, indiscriminate attacks and the use of explosive weapons with wide impact in populated areas have left thousands of civilians killed and injured, as documented by the UN Human Rights Office.
Closer to the front line, in the Donetsk region, attacks have damaged homes, gas and electricity systems on both sides of the front line. Dozens of homes have reportedly been damaged over the past 24 hours alone in areas under Ukrainian control, including the city of Kramatorsk, according to local authorities. Russian-installed authorities also reported that civilians have been killed and injured in areas they control.
On the response to the catastrophe caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, the UN sent today two additional inter-agency convoys to communities facing water shortages in the Dnipro Region and continued our assistance in the Kherson region.
So far, OCHA and its partners have delivered more than 115,000 rations of ready-to-eat food and 900,000 litres of drinking water. They have provided cash to more than 5,400 people and registered another 9,000 people for cash assistance. They have also reached 1 million people with mine-awareness campaigns. This is in addition to medical and protection services, including counselling, accommodation and transportation for those displaced.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, our work also continues, including through another inter-agency convoy today to civilians in Avdiivka, a front-line town in the Donetsk region. OCHA and its partners sent food, hygiene and shelter kits and other critical household items to nearly 1,700 civilians who remain in the locality, where heavy bombardment is a daily reality.
Sudan
After nearly two months of fighting, the number of people internally displaced by the violence has risen to almost 1.7 million, according to the International Organization for Migration.
UN agencies continue to respond to surging humanitarian needs across the country. In recent days, IOM and its partners have distributed life-saving supplies to nearly 3,000 people who had fled to El Obeid in North Kordofan state.
Over the weekend, the World Food Programme distributed nutrition support for 170 children evacuated to Wad Medani from the Maygoma Orphanage in Khartoum last week.
To date, WFP has reached more than 870,000 people with emergency food and nutrition assistance since resuming operations in Sudan six weeks ago.