Weekly Update #165
April 28, 2025

Source: UNHCR collation of statistics made available by the authorities

UNICEF Ukraine Humanitarian Situation Report No. 50

UNICEF improved access to safe water and wastewater services for 718,222 people through the emergency rehabilitation of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure and provision of critical machinery and equipment, including pipes, fittings, welding machines, reagents and laboratory instruments.

• In March, 897 health care facilities were equipped with 920 vaccine refrigerators and 1,000 passive cooling devices, ensuring safe storage of vaccines during power disruptions.

• Mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) was delivered to 30,738 children and 13,767 caregivers this month through mobile teams, safe spaces, online platforms and in-person consultations. For example, on 24 March, an attack on Sumy City killed one person and injured 91 others with three schools hit. UNICEF-supported psychologists deployed immediately to provide emergency psychological support at the site of the attack, supporting over 200 people, including 14 adolescents.

• The rehabilitation of an additional school shelter was completed allowing Zaporizhzhia Gymnasium #103 to resume in-person learning for the first time since 2022, welcoming 1,001 students (510 girls). Three school shelters have been rehabilitated in Zaporizhzhia since the beginning of 2025, benefiting 2,214 children (1,129 girls).

Source: UNICEF

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Health Cluster Bulletin #3

While high level ceasefire negotiations continued throughout March, hostilities showed no sign of abating. According to ACLED data, the number of air and drone strikes more than doubled in March 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, primarily affecting Kharkiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, and other front-line oblasts. Together with the Ministry of Health and partners, the Health Cluster finalized and circulated a Ceasefire Response Plan to enable rapid health service scale-up in hard-to-reach areas, should a pause in hostilities allow for increased humanitarian access.

Hostilities continued to have devastating consequences for civilians. In March, civilian casualties surged, with at least 164 civilians killed and 910 injured, as verified by the UN HRMMU. This represents a twofold increase compared to February 2025 and over a 70 per cent increase compared to March 2024. Complementing the efforts of national health authorities, Health Cluster partners provided life-saving health services to over 1,200 people by the end of March 2025. This included the provision of first aid, medical transportation to health facilities, and psychological first aid for those affected.

Evacuation efforts expanded amid deteriorating security in frontline oblasts, with a marked increase in the number of people arriving at transit centers, particularly in Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovska oblast, where arrivals have doubled compared to the beginning of the year. Health Cluster partners continued to support health authorities in the provision of primary health care and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) at designated transit centers, reaching nearly 3,000 people since January.

Attacks on health care continue to endanger the lives of health care workers and patients, while severely disrupting the provision of essential medical services. On 19 March, three hospitals in Sumska oblast were damaged, injuring a health worker. In March alone, the Health Cluster and WHO, through the WHO SSA verified 39 attacks on health care, resulting in 13 injuries and one person killed among health workers and patients.

The health sector is experiencing significant service delivery gaps, attributed in part to the ongoing funding suspension, as highlighted in recent assessments by REACH (February 2025) and ACAPS (March 2025).

Source: Health Cluster, WHO

Continued Russian assaults drive civilians from frontline communities

As Ukrainian cities struggle to recover from this week’s deadly missile and drone strikes, frontline areas remain under relentless attack, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) reported on Friday, warning of ongoing displacement and deepening humanitarian needs.

“Attacks on frontline regions (are) increasing and it's always civilians that are bearing the highest cost of the war,” said UNHCR Representative Karolina Lindholm Billing.

Since January, more than 3,500 newly displaced people have transited through a centre in Pavlohrad towards central Ukraine; in total, more than 200,000 people have been evacuated or displaced from frontline areas between August last year and the start of 2025.

Last month, more than 4,200 evacuees arrived at a transit centre in the northeastern city of Sumy where UNHCR and partners provide humanitarian support. These numbers are only a fraction of all those made homeless by the violence and mandatory evacuation orders issued by Kyiv in the face of ongoing Russian aggression.

The majority of those being moved are the elderly with low mobility or disabilities, families with few resources and children. In many cases, they stayed until the end because they didn't want to leave everything they had behind, UNHCR said.

On Thursday, UN aid agencies led condemnation of Russian missile-and-drone attack on Kyiv that killed 12 people and injured 84, one of a wave of attacks across the country that point to an intensification of the conflict since the start of the year - and growing humanitarian needs for refugees.

“Those deadly Russian attacks have intensified alarmingly since January,” said Ms. Billing, speaking to journalists in Geneva via videolink from Kyiv.

“More than 1,000 people have been directly affected as their homes have been damaged or completely destroyed. Civilian infrastructure were also hit in several other regions yesterday, including in Kharkiv, where I myself woke up around 2 am in the morning to the loud sound of explosions.”

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, civilian casualties in Ukraine were 70 per cent higher in March this year compared to 12 months earlier.

The war has left four million internally displaced since 24 February 2022 when Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. Many of those uprooted have yet to find affordable housing and a new job - which is why support from humanitarian organizations is so crucial, the UNHCR official continued.

“One of the main things we deliver as part of the emergency response are emergency shelter materials that help people cover broken windows, roofs and doors,” Ms. Billing said.

Since 2022, UNHCR has supported around 450,000 people making repairs on their homes. The UN agency also provides psychological first aid and legal support to those who have lost their identity documents and emergency cash assistance to help people cover most basic needs.

Source: UN, UNHCR