Highlights
The third round of the national vaccination campaign in response to the polio outbreak started on 25 January, targeting 4.75 million children from the age of 2 months to 10 years.
An extensive training programme is being held for health professionals, school principals and others to reinforce the vaccination campaign to increase coverage rates. UNICEF has intensified its communications strategy to increase awareness amongst parents and schools.
The UNICEF Humanitarian Action Plan (HAC) 2016 was launched on 26 January 2016, and includes an appeal for US$54.3 million for the conflict- affected areas of eastern Ukraine.
Daniela Schadt, the First Lady of Germany, who is also the patron of the German National Committee for UNICEF, visited UNICEF-supported projects in Kharkiv oblast from 17-20 January 2016. Her visit was covered widely in the Ukrainian and German media, gaining much- needed visibility on the situation faced by Ukrainian conflict-affected children.
UNICEF’s provided the following to the non- government controlled areas: 35,400kg of midwifery kits; 10 water pumps; and 4824 packs of anti-retroviral drugs. 4,000 individual educational kits for the most-in-need-children were also distributed.
In government-controlled areas, UNICEF delivered furniture, sports equipment and other materials to 12 kindergartens in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, enabling almost 1,000 additional seats in pre- school facilities where many IDP children are present.
Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs
After a relatively calm start to the year, by mid-January 2016, OSCE Special Monitoring Mission monitors were reporting repeated ceasefire violations along the line of contact in a number of locations, including Kominternove and Vodiane (north east of Mariupol), Horlivka and Donetsk. During the OCHA Coordination meeting on 22 January 2016, a Civil Military Liaison Officer advised that there had been a record level of shelling in the last few months, including the use of prohibited weapons. However, the deteriorating security has not changed the situation on the ground and no dvidence of advance by either party to the conflict has been recorded.
The situation at checkpoints and crossings between government and non-government controlled areas continues to create unsatisfactory and uncomfortable conditions for those people (including women and children) who are trying to cross. Long queues at checkpoints often force people to sleep there overnight.
UNICEF’s partner organisations, such as Ukrainian Frontiers, are continuing efforts to ameliorate this situation by providing extra sanitation facilities.
During the period 1–27 January 2016, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), working under the auspices of the OHCHR, recorded 16 civilian casualties in the conflict zone of eastern Ukraine: one killed and 15 injured1. Small arms fire killed one woman and injured three women and two men. Seven civilians were injured by explosive remnants of war, including a 5-year-old boy in Artemivsk and a 14 year old girl in Zaitseve (both in Donetsk oblast).
As temperatures throughout Ukraine plummeted, down to -20 degrees on several occasions, humanitarian organizations stepped up their winterization programmes, aimed at helping the most vulnerable people, by providing fuel, non-food items, insulation of premises, and cash grants. UNICEF and its partners continued the repair and rehabilitation of schools, kindergartens and health centres that are most severely damaged. Supplies of hygiene kits, midwifery kits, anti-retrovirals and other items sent by UNICEF to Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts are helping to improve the living conditions and relieve the burden of the most vulnerable children and their families.