Today's top news: Ukraine

Ukraine

Civilians across the country faced a grim weekend, with air strikes having killed and injured dozens of civilians. Homes, schools and hospitals were also damaged in different parts of the country.

A strike hit a residential building in Dnipro on Saturday evening, in one of the deadliest attacks in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion last February.

The Secretary-General said this attack was another example of a suspected blatant violation of the laws of war.

The Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, condemned the immense civilian toll of the attack by the Russian Federation Armed Forces and called for an effective investigation of suspected war crimes and appropriate prosecution of suspects.

According to our colleagues from the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, at least 40 civilians, including 3 children, were killed. At least 75 people, 15 of them children, were injured, while in their homes. These numbers are expected to rise even further, as search and rescue operations continue by local authorities.

More than 1,000 people have been made homeless as a result of the attack, according to our humanitarian colleagues on the ground.

On the response side, our colleagues from UN agencies and non-governmental organizations have acted quickly to support the families. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Refugees and others are providing psychosocial support to the families, as well as winter clothes, blankets, hygiene kits and other critical household items. We are also helping families relocate to temporary accommodations in the city. The World Health Organization is supplying medicines and other supplies.

This was not the only attack impacting civilians in Ukraine over the weekend. In Kherson, the premises hosting the Ukrainian Red Cross Society were hit during shelling in the city yesterday. Although no one was injured, the organization lost critical supplies. International humanitarian law is clear: humanitarian workers and facilities are protected and constant efforts must be made to spare them. A hospital, also protected under international humanitarian law, was also hit in the city.

In Kryviy Rih, in the Dnipro region, local authorities informed that more than 50 homes, three schools, two kindergartens were damaged yesterday alone.

Further east, the situation remains critical, with scores of civilians killed and injured on both sides of the front line in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. In the parts of Donetsk under the temporary control of the Russian Federation, dozens of homes were damaged, and at least two health centres and several ambulances were also hit during shelling reported over the weekend, according to Russian-installed authorities.