The organizations call to continue supporting the victims given the few prospects for short-term solutions

MADRID, 18 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The military offensive launched on February 24, 2022 by Russian President Vladimir Putin on neighboring Ukraine has caused 40 percent of the population to need help, in a context in which international agencies and NGOs are striving to provide help with no hope of a short-term political resolution.

Ukraine was already in the international humanitarian focus since before the invasion, the result of the conflict unleashed in the east in 2014. However, Putin’s offensive has exponentially multiplied the crisis, also spreading it to other areas of the country that until February 2022 were considered safe.

Before the invasion, the number of people with food or subsistence needs was around 1.1 million, but by the end of 2022 the figure had already risen to 9.3 million. Some 14.5 million require health care, while almost 5 million children depend on help to continue studying.

Much of all these shortcomings derive from the fact that millions of people have been forced to leave their homes. Until the end of January, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) had evidence of more than 5.3 million internally displaced persons, to which should be added eight million refugees who had fled to other countries, according to data from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Those who have decided to leave Ukraine have mainly ended up in Europe -4.8 million enjoy some type of protection status-, but the persistence of the conflict has meant that some of the displaced have decided to return. The IOM communication officer in Ukraine, Varvara Zhluktenko, explained to Europa Press that there have been half a million fewer internally displaced persons since December and that, of the 5.5 million registered returns, 20 percent correspond to refugees.

“The trend observed by the IOM is that there are currently more people returning than leaving,” although the situation remains particularly worrying in the case of eastern Ukraine, where seven out of ten displaced people come from. It is in this area where the main offensives and the crossover of attacks between the two belligerent sides are concentrated.

Those who decide to return do not always do so for security reasons. In fact, a study from October 2022 showed that 42 percent did so for “sentimental reasons” ranging from nostalgia to the search for a “normal life”, while 30 percent wanted to see relatives or friends.

34 percent of the returns derive from an economic motivation, for example having a job, and 27 percent sought to be able to stay in their own home or at least cheaper, according to the survey carried out by the IOM. Currently, six out of ten displaced persons live with relatives or friends.

Ukrainians have had to adjust to living with constant uncertainty, something that takes its toll on vulnerable groups such as children. “While Ukraine’s children have shown great resilience, what in humanitarian parlance we call ‘resilience’, the mental wounds of this war could scar them for life,” said the head of UNICEF’s gender program in Ukraine. , Clara Bastardes.

“The conflict has already stolen a year of their lives. We cannot allow it to take away their future as well,” he emphasized in statements to Europa Press, looking back at a “brutal war” that threatens to cause mental health problems in 1.5 million children.

Maksym, 14, fled with his family from the Kherson region and recalls that at first he was “very afraid” for his relatives and friends – to this day he has not been able to contact some of them again. His desire is clear, and this has been transferred to the NGO World Vision, from which he receives help in a center that offers everything from educational support to social activities: “I dream that the war ends and we return home.”

The UN Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, warns that, a year after Putin gave the order to start the invasion, “the war continues to cause death, destruction and displacement on a daily basis” and at a level ” overwhelming”. “The suffering of the Ukrainian people is far from over, they need international support,” he implores.

All the organizations that work on the ground and even the most involved international governments agree that there is no short-term solution in sight, especially when the two parties, Ukraine and Russia, have crossed paths in recent weeks warning of a potential escalation coinciding with the first anniversary of the invasion.

The UN Office for Human Rights has its particular count of civilian victims, with more than 7,100 dead and nearly 12,000 injured, but assumes that the real figure is “much higher.” It does have confirmed the death of at least 438 children.

The United Nations periodically recalls in its reports that there are black spots that remain inaccessible, including the city of Mariupol, where the Ukrainian authorities suspect that thousands of people have been killed by Russian forces. In the collective memory are the hundreds of civilian corpses found in black spots like Bucha after the withdrawal of Russian troops.

The IOM communication officer in Ukraine, Varvara Zhluktenko, acknowledges that the UN lacks “exact figures” of the people who remain trapped in areas under the control of Russia or related groups, although it is known that a third of the People in need of humanitarian aid are near areas with “active fighting.”