Weekend attacks in Ukraine bring more casualties, damage infrastructure

Between Friday and early morning Monday, Ukrainian authorities said that over a dozen civilians were killed and more than 70 others injured, including two children. Basic service disruptions were reported in over 270 towns and villages.  

The attacks come amid harsh winter conditions in Ukraine and increasing humanitarian needs as attacks last week also disrupted services and led to several fatalities.  

Near-daily attacks

The region of Odesa is particularly hit and is experiencing near-daily attacks, according to OCHA. On Friday an overnight attack targeting port infrastructure killed eight civilians and injured 27 others. Repeated strikes also knocked out power, affecting tens of thousands of people. 

In addition, Dnipro, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv saw their energy infrastructure hit, with hundreds of thousands of people affected. A health facility and a school were also damaged in the attacks. Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia also suffered casualties. 

Ukrainian authorities told OCHA that a warehouse storing humanitarian aid was damaged in the Mykolaiv region. 

Aid appeal half funded

In the Sumy region, some 40 people were evacuated to safer areas over the last three days, OCHA said. Meanwhile, in the Donetsk region, nearly 330 civilians, including 50 children, were evacuated.  

All in all, since June, nearly 150,000 people have been evacuated from front-line areas, including more than 16,500 children and over 5,000 people with limited mobility.  

Humanitarian workers have managed to reach more than 700,000 people near the front line with aid this year. However, funding gaps persist, leaving more than one million people without safe water and limiting access to protection and gender-based violence services. 

This year’s $2.6 billion appeal for Ukraine is only half funded, at nearly $1.4 billion.