On 15 January, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) plan to jointly launch the Ukraine Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan, as well as the Regional Refugee Response Plan for 2024, the OCHA reported on Tuesday.
40% of Ukraine’s Population to Require Humanitarian Aid in 2024: UN
OCHA Global Deputy spokesperson Jens Laerke said in a statement in 2024 about 14.6 million people in Ukraine, or roughly 40% of the population, will require humanitarian aid due to the ongoing war.
The existing humanitarian crisis is likely to worsen this year if hostilities continue and attacks on energy and other critical services intensify during the ongoing winter, Laerke remarked.
According to a media advisory released by OCHA, “the war has also forced some 6.3 million Ukrainians to flee abroad. As of the end of 2023, 5.9 million refugees from Ukraine were recorded across Europe. This year’s Regional Refugee Response Plan will target some 2.3 million refugees and local communities generously hosting them.”
Laerke announced that next week, the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, and the High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, will outline UN-coordinated plans to save lives and address the suffering caused by the current crisis.
A panel discussion will be held to present both plans, with Martin Griffiths, Filippo Grandi, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, Ukraine’s Deputy PM Iryna Vereshchuk, and NGO representatives from Ukraine and Poland, Laerke said.
Millions of people in 1,000 towns in Ukraine are without electricity today when temperatures plunged to as low as -15.
— OCHA Ukraine (@OCHA_Ukraine) January 9, 2024
Those close to the front line, already on the brink, are particularly affected.
Humanitarians are providing life-saving winter support to 1.7 million people. pic.twitter.com/lw1Zb0yxI6
Current Situation in Ukraine
The OCHA spokesperson claimed that the first week of January witnessed an upsurge of attacks on Ukraine, which began on December 29th and is still ongoing.
“Families across Ukraine were ringing in the New Year to the sound of air raid sirens, hunkering down in underground shelters and metro stations, or in the basements of their homes,” he added.
“On 2nd January, humanitarians in the capital Kyiv counted over 30 explosions in that city alone,” Laerke went on. “Kharkiv in the east was also hit, at least five civilian casualties were reported, and 130 people were injured that day.”
“On top of the violence, Ukraine is now in the grip of a deep winter. A continued, large-scale humanitarian operation is as urgent today as it ever was,” he urged.
As of Tuesday, Russia continued to launch drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, killing four people and injuring at least 45 others. In Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih in the southeast, missiles struck a shopping mall and residential buildings, killing one person.
In its daily briefing, the Russian Defence Ministry reported that it used sea and air-launched long-range missiles, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, to hit “facilities of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex.”