Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine has left civilians vulnerable to repeated deadly attacks and humanitarian workers and key facilities being targeted and destroyed.
Key points
- Attacks are part of intensifying Russian war on civilian targets
- Frontline medical supplies destroyed in strike
- World Health Organization (WHO) tracker points to 70+ warehouse attacks to date
In a statement condemning last week’s strikes on a UN warehouse in Dnipro, WHO reported that the facility had been first hit on Monday and twice on Friday.
“The warehouse held emergency health supplies bound for frontline health facilities. Everything was destroyed,” the agency said.
After the first strike, WHO started transferring supplies. An agency staff member and several drivers had just left the site on 7 August before the second strike. Hours later, a third strike destroyed the building. No casualties were reported.
Frontline losses
In total, WHO teams managed to move 130 of roughly 300 pallets to another location before the storehouse was destroyed in the eastern city of Dnipro. Before the attacks, the facility held supplies worth an estimated $500,000.
“This warehouse held supplies that were intended to keep lifesaving services available on the frontline,” said Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe. “Its destruction means less medicine, less equipment and less capacity to treat the sick and wounded. These attacks must stop now.”
Russian authorities reported last week that Ukrainian strikes on a warehouse killed five in the Moscow region on Tuesday and seven on a beach in the Krasnodar region on Monday.
Spiralling toll
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, there have been 3,149 attacks on healthcare and 240 deaths, according to WHO data. The agency’s global portal shows a total of 72 warehouse attacks and 646 instances where supplies have been impacted.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, also highlighted how “intensifying” Russian attacks across Ukraine have hit facilities run by its partners in recent weeks, disrupting humanitarian operations.
These attacks have included an airstrike that destroyed a warehouse and office of non-governmental organization (NGO) partner Proliska in Pavlohrad, Dnipro region. There were no casualties in the attack on 31 July.
“However, the strike destroyed a stock of UNHCR emergency shelter materials intended to support people whose homes have been damaged by shelling,” the agency told UN News.
That attack followed an earlier strike by Russia on 20 May, when a missile hit a UNHCR-leased warehouse in Dnipro. The attack killed two people, injured others and caused significant damage, destroying approximately 900 pallets of basic aid items and shelter materials worth more than $1 million.
All relief items had been ready for distribution to displaced and war-affected people in frontline regions.
“UNHCR is working with authorities, partners and other UN agencies to replenish critical aid stocks and identify alternative warehouse space, enabling the organization to continue delivering assistance to people affected by the ongoing Russian invasion,” the agency said.
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Tragic update
In an update last Friday, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said that at least 10 civilians had been killed in a 24-hour period, with more than 120 others injured.
The Dnipro region was hardest hit, with five people killed and 16 others hurt. In the Kharkiv region, attacks killed two people and injured 18 others after a strike hit a railway station in the city of Lozova.
Elsewhere, attacks killed and injured civilians across the regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Odesa, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia.
An attack on a civilian vessel in the Odesa region killed one sailor and injured three others while a separate sea-mine incident in the Mykolaiv region left one person dead and three others injured.
OCHA also highlighted how the NGO Save The Children reported that a guided aerial bomb had damaged its office in the city of Sumy, marking the second attack on the organization’s facilities in Ukraine in less than a week. A drone strike also last week damaged a Save The Children warehouse storing humanitarian supplies for children.
Despite the growing risks to aid operations across Ukraine, the UN and its humanitarian partners continue working to provide emergency assistance to people affected by intensified attacks.
