Weekly Update #8
April 18

Total Refugee influx from Ukraine in neighboring countries

Country Population

Belarus - 22,827

Hungary - 454,098

Poland - 2,744,778

Republic of Moldova - 421,130

Romania - 732,473

Russian Federation - 484,725

Slovakia - 332,707

A three-dimensional crisis: The war’s long-term impact

The war’s long-term impact on the global systems of food, energy, and finance was stressed by the UN Secretary-Gereral Antonio Gutierres. On April 13, the Secretary-General presented the first detailed policy brief issued by the Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance (GCRG), which he set up to study the effects of the military offensive in Ukraine on the world’s most vulnerable (https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1116152).

What is the GCRG?

The Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance is a 32-member group, chaired by UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, which includes heads of UN agencies, development banks and other international organizations.

It was launched by Mr. Guterres on 14 March, in response to concerns over the potential consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as the continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

How will it help?

The group will ensure collaboration across governments, the multilateral system and a wide range of sectors, to help vulnerable countries avert large-scale crises.

This will be achieved through high-level coordination and partnerships, urgent action, and access to critical data, analysis and policy recommendations. The first policy brief was released on Wednesday.

Why is it important?

According to the policy brief, the Ukraine crisis risks tipping up to 1.7 billion people — over one-fifth of the global population — into poverty, destitution and hunger.

The Russian Federation and Ukraine produce around 30 per cent of the world’s wheat and barley, one-fifth of its maize, and over half of its sunflower oil. Together, their grain is an essential food source for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people, providing more thanone-third of the wheat imported by 45 African and least-developed countries. At the same time, the Russian Federation is the world’s top natural gas exporter and second-largest oil exporter

Limited access to basic services

With the ongoing conflict and large-scale displacement of people into neighboring countries, access to health care continues to pose a challenge, with limited or no access to medicines

in some areas, severe disruptions in critical services and a lack of public transport restricting movement. Between 24 February and 13 April, a total of 119 attacks on health care have beenreported, resulting in 51 injuries and 73 deaths. Further attacks are being verified (WHO-EURO-2022-5152-44915-64177-eng.pdf)

Since the start of the war on 24 February, at least 20 separate incidents of damage to water infrastructure have been recorded in eastern Ukraine alone. The most recent intensification of fighting in the Donbas region and the widespread use of explosive weapons in populated areas threatens to push the water system—already impacted by the previous eight years of conflict—to the edge of a complete collapse.

Water network and power cuts, a result of conflict-related damage, put an additional 4.6 million people across Ukraine at risk of losing access to piped water (https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/14-million-people-without-running-water-across-war-affected-eastern-ukraine). Restoring water access and providing emergency supplies to these cities and other areas of intense fighting has been extremely challenging. Since the start of the conflict, humanitarian organizations in Ukraine have received reliable reports that four water technicians have been injured in Chernihiv and one in Kharkiv, adding to at least 35 water engineers who have been killed or injured in Donetska and Luhanska oblasts since 2014.

Education – so crucial for a child’s sense of ‘normalcy’ – has been shattered, with more than one in five schools in eastern Ukraine damaged or destroyed. Teachers and psychologists report signs of severe psychosocial distress among children, including nightmares, social withdrawal and panic attacks triggered by loud noises. As per estimates, more than one in four children in Donetsk and Luhansk need psychosocial support. Few, however, get that support, as the available services are over-stretched and under-funded (https://www.unicef.org/ukraine/en/emergency-response-conflict-eastern-ukraine).

Strengthening delivery of life-saving aid

Many people who are trapped are unable to meet their basic needs including food, water and medicines. The delivery of life-saving aid remains challenging, with a lack of safe humanitarian access.

Access to the hardest hit areas remains challenging with continuing security risks, both for affected civilians as well as humanitarian actors. Despite this, UNHCR, as part of interagency humanitarian convoys, has reached 18,900 people in the hardest hit areas with life-saving assistance (UNHCR_Ukraine situation flash update No 8 13 04 2022 .pdf). This includes the latest inter-agency convoy on 7 April, which reached Volnovakha with more than 10 tons of humanitarian assistance including tarpaulin, household and hygiene items, food kits, baby food, bottled water and blankets.

UNHCR leads three clusters within the inter-agency response program – Protection, Shelter and Non-Food items, and Camp Coordination and Camp Management. Their goal is to provide immediate relief to those fleeing military hostilities, while helping to stabilize an environment of fast-paced displacement (UNHCR Ukraine - Operational Update - 11 April 2022 (2).pdf). They have reached thousands of displaced persons since the war began. The Operational Update summarizes in numbers their response to date.

UNHCR has stocked Core Relief Items in Dnipro such as blankets, tarpaulins and sleeping bags, for approximately 34,500 people where intensified hostilities are expected. An additional 28,000 items are in the pipeline. UNHCR will deliver assistance through the State Emergency Service in 6 locations (Dobropillya, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Bakhmout, Konstantinovka and Pokrovsk). Items for some 9,000 people are already on the way to Bakhmout, Sloviansk and Dobropillya.

For the World Food Program, supply constraints are challenging timely delivery of humanitarian assistance in some of the hardest hit areas (WFP-Situation report 13_16 April.pdf ). These include the limited availability of trucks, reluctance of drivers to travel across frontline areas aswell as the dwindling fuel supplies. In response, WFP is looking into innovative solutions such as using Uber as a transport mechanism. Alongside, securing additional warehouse capacity and prepositioning humanitarian commodities strategically close to areas with ongoing military operations is underway.

WFP delivered life-saving food assistance in the recently opened up city of Bucha and other areas in Kyiv oblast for the first time. Over the last few weeks, the city of Bucha experienced substantial civilian casualties and severe destruction of its critical infrastructure. WFP expanded its food delivery to other encircled and partially encircled urban areas surrounding Kyiv, reaching around 40,000 crisis-affected people.

In addition, WFP promotes localization through delivering food and cash assistance through a network of local humanitarian organizations. At present, partnership agreements were signed with four local and six international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to extend the outreach of the operation towards the hard-to-reach and most affected people, while more are under discussion. These agreements cover food distributions, voucher distributions and cash transfer enrolment and monitoring for around 1.6 million beneficiaries (WFP-Situation report 13_16 April.pdf)

Since the start of the Kremlin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, neighboring countries have felt the economic and democratic reverberations of the war. This week, USAID (United States Agency for International Develoment) Administrator Samantha Power traveled to the Slovak Republic and Moldova to meet with partners generously responding to the influx of Ukrainian refugees fleeing Putin’s war. In Slovakia, she met with journalists, politicians, and civil society members working on innovative methods to monitor and dismantle disinformation narratives and techniques peddled by the Kremlin and its proxies. In Moldova, journalists and civil society members shared the rampant challenges they face while documenting war crimes and fighting disinformation, and business owners conveyed their obstacles in accessing new markets. And everywhere she went, Administrator Power witnessed firsthand displaced Ukrainian families being met with an outpouring of generosity from Slovaks and Moldovans welcoming them into their homes.

Key USAID Updates

• Administrator Power announced $50 million of additional economic and development assistance to bolster Moldova’s resilience to the long-term economic consequences of Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine, to support democracy, human rights and governance programming and to help reduce Moldova’s dependence on energy sources and financing from malign actors. This brings new U.S. assistance to the Republic of Moldova in response to the war to a total of $130 million.

• USAID partner the World Food Program has transported 500 metric tons of wheat flour–enough to provide bread for 500,000 people for a week–to Kyiv. In addition, a WFP-contracted bakery locally delivered 56 metric tons of bread—sufficient to meet the needs of 140,000 people—to hospitals in Kharkiv. WFP’s assistance also includes high energy biscuits, wheat flour, vegetable oil, bread, and mixed canned food.

• USAID recognizes the disproportionate impact of the crisis on women and girls, who face heightened risk of exposure to gender-based violence (GBV) and other forms of harm, as well as the increased vulnerability to abuse and exploitation experienced by older adults, persons with disabilities, and unaccompanied or separated children. To address these spiking needs, USAID is working to scale-up and expand protection sector programming, including improved access to social services and psychosocial support for conflict-affected individuals.

• On April 4, unknown actors temporarily detained International Committee of the Red Cross staff traveling to the besieged city of Mariupol, preventing the aid workers from facilitating the evacuation of civilians. USAID’s team continues to monitor and support the movement of humanitarian aid in Ukraine. Read the latest fact sheet.

Despite the precarious security situation and difficulties, Caritas continues its humanitarian work in Ukraine.

URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE

OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

EASTER 2022

Central loggia of the Vatican Basilica

Easter, 17 April