UNICEF: About 500,000 children in Donbas are in urgent need of protection

“In eastern Ukraine, some 500,000 children affected by conflict are in urgent need of protection and humanitarian assistance, including access to clean drinking water, safe learning environments, quality health care and psychosocial support. The situation is particularly severe for 400,000 children who live within 20km of the ‘contact line’, which divides the government and non-government controlled areas and where shelling and extreme levels of mine-contamination pose lethal threat,” UNICEF Ukraine reports.

As noted, Ukrainian children lack conditions for safe education.

“More than four years of conflict have taken a devastating toll on the education system, destroying and damaging hundreds of schools and forcing girls and boys to learn in fragile environments, amidst volatile fighting and the dangers posed by unexploded weapons of war. Between January and December 2018, an estimated 16 educational facilities were damaged by shelling and 50 facilities temporarily closed hampering children from access to safe learning,” the report reads.