Ukraine at UN: 147 children killed during Russian aggression in Donbas
“147 children were killed during the ongoing Russian armed aggression against Ukraine launched in February 2014 and thousands of children need assistance with physical and mental health problems,” reads the statement by Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations H.E. Mr. Sergiy Kyslytsya at the UN Security Council Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict on June 24, 2020.
As the diplomat noted, Ukraine is among the most severely affected places in the world for casualties because of landmines and other explosive remnants of war. “This is one of the main causes of conflict-related child casualties, leaving many children with lifelong disabilities,” Kyslytsya emphasized.
He also noted that an increase in shelling in eastern Ukraine had resulted in numerous child casualties and damaged schools in the region, making life even more unbearable for the approximately 430,000 children.
“The gravity of the situation is clear – only during one week in May six children were injured at home after their villages came under shelling,” Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations said.
According to him, more than 750 educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed due to hostilities and there have been nine attacks on schools since the beginning of 2020, five occurring in April alone.
“Under the pretext of quarantine measures, the armed forces of the Russian Federation and its proxies have severely impeded delivery of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population, including children. In addition, the real state of the epidemiological situation in the temporarily occupied territories is obscured by distorting data on the actual number of confirmed COVID-19 cases,” Kyslytsya said.
As reported, Ukraine again called on the Russian occupation authorities to provide full access for international humanitarian organizations that would provide an objective assessment of the epidemiological situation in the region.
ol
