Top United Nations officials have warned of an
“extremely dangerous” humanitarian situation brewing in occupied Luhansk, as
Russian-backed separatists forced out monitors of the organization helping with
humanitarian aid.
The UN, one of the
last remaining sources of information on the occupied territories for the
international community, will now be “closing up shop” in the area, Ivan
Simonovic, the UN’s assistant secretary general for human rights, said at a
briefing in Kyiv on Sept. 25.
Simonovic, presenting
his findings from a recent trip to occupied Luhansk, said the group’s ouster
from the territory comes after monitors discovered a horrifying humanitarian
situation: sick children deprived of essential medications, patients forced to
undergo surgery without anesthesia, and food prices so high that many residents
can’t afford to eat properly.
After meeting with
three separate social institutions in occupied Luhansk, two of which treat
disabled children, Simonovic stressed that it was the most vulnerable members
of the population who were suffering.
“They lack
medicines. Some medicines are completely inaccessible, and some have a very
short-term supply. For example, you have bed-ridden children, children who
can’t get out of their beds and are suffering from epileptic attacks, and they
have an eight days’ supply of medications. And after that, they simply have no
medication. So we could calculate what that means in terms of death and human
suffering,” he said.
“In this light, it
is particularly disturbing that there actually are supplies but there seem to
be problems with distribution. I’m very sad to say that Luhansk authorities
have decided to deny accreditation and stop accreditation for all international
groups in the territory, which means that the UN is being kicked out of Luhansk
today. So, no UN international staff will remain, we are closing up shop,”
Simonovic said.
The organization
received no explanation for why they were being given the boot, he said.
“I had many
interlocutors in Luhansk – NGOs, institutions taking care of the disabled,
civilians. But I didn’t meet any of the authorities there. They didn’t want to
meet me,” he said, adding, however, that he’d “gotten a message from Mr.
Plotnitsky that he would be available to talk in early October, so I will
accept this offer.”
Igor Plotnitsky is
the head of the Russian-backed authorities that have seized control of parts of
Ukraine’s Luhansk Oblast.
The ejection comes
at a particularly crucial time, Simonovic said, as winter is right around the
corner and civilians will now be deprived of life-saving aid.
In addition to sick
children being deprived of medications, Simonovic said he’d also “heard of many
cases of serious surgery being performed without anesthesia.”
“This is extremely
dangerous, the politicization of humanitarian aid is an irresponsible act and
it is the civilians who will be paying the price,” he said.
Monitors had also
become aware of a growing crisis caused by the lack of proper birth
certificates and death certificates in the occupied territories.
“If a child was
born there recently, when coming here, that child was not born and does not
exist. Because birth certificates issued there are not valid here, parents
cannot get access to vital services that the child needs,” Simonovic said.
Apart from rising
prices and a lack of essential medicines, Simonovic said the separatist
authorities’ conversion of pensions from Ukrainian currency to Russian currency
in early September saw many pensioners get duped.
“When converting
pensions from the hryvnias being paid by Kyiv into (Russian) rubles being paid
by the local authorities … the exchange rate was set at two rubles to the
hryvnia, while on the black market it’s three-to-one … so you are,
realistically, receiving a third less. So you have prices that are growing and
pensions that are going down,” Simonovic said.
Stephen O’Brien,
the UN’s Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said in a
statement published on Sept. 24 that he was “alarmed” by the separatist
authorities’ decision, noting that authorities in both occupied Donetsk and
Luhansk were failing to abide by their international obligations.
“The suspension of
almost all humanitarian programs in Luhansk and Donetsk since mid-July is
putting lives at risk and preventing the most vulnerable, including children,
women and the elderly, from accessing basic services. It is having a serious
impact on some three million people as winter approaches,” O’Brien said.
“Some 16,000 tons
of humanitarian assistance, including food, shelter and non-food relief
supplies cannot be delivered,” he said. “Hospitals cannot perform surgery
because they lack anesthesia. Patients’ lives are at risk without essential
medicines such as insulin and tuberculosis vaccines. Some 150,000 people are
not receiving monthly food distributions, 1.3 million people’s access to water
is at risk, and more than 30,000 people have not received shelter materials and
household items they urgently need.”
The UN’s Refugee Agency has also been affected, saying in a statement issued on Sept. 25 that the agency “deeply regrets” the move, “which comes at a critical time as harsher winter weather is about to hit the region.”
“More than two million Ukrainians have been displaced internally and externally since the beginning of the conflict and they are in need of food, shelter, healthcare and other essential assistance. Furthermore, people in the areas affected by the conflict have been severely impacted by the destruction of housing and infrastructure, as well as by the breakdown of services. Many of them are trapped and isolated,” the statement read.
Kyiv Post staff writer Allison Quinn can be
reached at [email protected]
