Two years since the beginning of the war, we continue to provide protection, health assistance and essential goods to the civilian population increasingly affected by the conflict

 

Homes, schools and hospitals continue to be bombed daily in Ukraine, two years after the start of the conflict that has produced nearly 4 million internally displaced people and nearly 6 million refugees in other European countries. According to UNHCR, 14.6 million people in Ukraine today are in need of humanitarian assistance. Our teams, deployed from the very first days of the crisis, continue to support IDPs and their host communities in the regions of Vynnitsia, Odessa, Poltava, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizka, Donetsk and Mikolaiv.

In the early stages of the emergency we worked to meet immediate needs, distributing essential goods, providing primary health care and psychological first aid. As the conflict continued, however, the needs of the population changed. The continuing violence in the country, besides directly affecting civilians, has caused the destruction of homes, hospitals, schools and vital civilian infrastructure. As a result, people now need more specialized and long-term services.

We have therefore adapted our intervention, structuring more targeted aid, for example by involving specialists, such as cardiologists and ophthalmologists, in our health activities. We also continue to offer basic medical care through a mobile team, a formula that allows us to reach the most isolated rural areas where there is no access to health services.

It is estimated that nearly 10 million people in Ukraine are at risk or living with mental health conditions resulting from the war. In 2023, we provided psychosocial support to more than 8,900 adults and about 1,900 children and managed 1,671 cases of vulnerable people.

In the territories along the front line, nearly 3.5 million people, including 800,000 children, depend on humanitarian aid for the most basic needs: access to water, food, health, adequate shelter, and fuel to heat homes and cook. According to the International Organization for Migration, nearly 720,000 people in these areas of the country have lost their homes or are living in damaged buildings.

In order to be able to respond to the needs of these communities, we established a Rapid Response Team in 2022, which supports evacuations, delivers humanitarian aid, and coordinates assistance in hard-to-reach areas very close to battleground, between 0-30 km from the front line. In 2023, we provided emergency assistance in remote areas of Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk regions.

As winter arrived, we distributed stoves, blankets, and materials to repair damaged homes to more than 1,500 people in the hardest-to-reach areas in 11 municipalities in northern Kharkiv region.

“We don’t see a solution in the short term to the crisis in Ukraine,” says Martin Rosselot, INTERSOS Director of Programmes, “so we will continue to support the civilian population in the country in 2024“.

 

(Photo credit: Fabio Bucciarelli)