Emergency supplies shipped from UNICEF’s Global Supply and Logistics Hub in Copenhagen arrived by truck in Lviv, western Ukraine, on March 5, part of a six-truck convoy carrying some 62 tons of items, including:
- personal protective equipment to protect health workers from COVID-19
- medicine and first aid kits
- midwifery kits
- surgical equipment
- learning and recreational items for young children
More supplies are on the way, including blankets and warm winter clothing from UNICEF’s Turkey Country Office warehouse in Mersin.
Earlier today, a convoy carrying crucial medical supplies — including first aid kits, midwifery kits and surgical equipment — arrived in western #Ukraine. “It is lifesaving equipment that we will just continue to pour across this country,” @UNICEF‘s @1james_elder tells @MSNBC. pic.twitter.com/3nKXPfEGbG
— UNICEF USA (@UNICEFUSA) March 6, 2022
UNICEF has been working around the clock to expedite emergency support to children and families impacted by the escalating conflict — those who remain inside Ukraine and the 1.7 million refugees who have fled to neighboring countries, with many more expected to follow.
Violence has intensified in and and around Ukraine’s major urban centers, moving closer to the civilian population. Hundreds of homes have been damaged or destroyed and it has been reported that schools and health centers have sustained heavy damage.
Many families are sheltering underground, cut off from basic services. As hospitals move patients into basements, women are giving birth in makeshift maternity wards with limited medical supplies. Hundreds of thousands of people across Ukraine are without safe drinking water due to damage to water systems. Medical supplies are running low, crippling efforts to contain a polio outbreak.
Supplies desperately needed by women, children and health care workers inside Ukraine arrived in Lviv on March 5
“The situation for children and families inside Ukraine is increasingly desperate,” said Murat Sahin, UNICEF Representative in Ukraine. “These supplies will help provide much needed support to women, children and health care workers.”
In the meantime, Sahin added, UNICEF is preparing to scale up assistance in the hardest-hit areas as soon as humanitarian access opens up and security restrictions are eased. And as children and families flee across borders, UNICEF is reactivating over a dozen ‘Blue Dot‘ support centers where they can go to receive critical services and information.
UNICEF has decades of experience working in conflict zones to save and protect the most vulnerable and assisting those uprooted by conflict. Response teams are leveraging this boots-on-the-ground expertise along with UNICEF’s massive supply operation and vast network of partners to maximize impact both inside and outside Ukraine.
UNICEF continues to call for an immediate suspension of hostilities in Ukraine. A pause in fighting would allow more aid to get through and families to venture out to get food and water, seek medical care or leave their homes to find safety.
UNICEF is trucking safe water into conflict areas and prepositioning health and emergency education supplies for distribution as soon as possible. UNICEF is also supporting mobile teams providing child protection and psychosocial care to traumatized children.
Help UNICEF scale up relief operations in Ukraine. Your contribution can make a difference. Donate today.
Top photo: Murat Sahin, UNICEF’s Representative in Ukraine, left, inspects emergency supplies as they arrive in Lviv on March 5, 2022. © UNICEF/UN0602211/Moskaliuk