Humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in ATO zone – OSCE SMM

15:10, 03.04.2015 1 min read

A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in eastern Ukraine, OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) Spokesman Michael Bociurkiw has said.

At a Friday briefing he said that the infrastructure of many towns and villages has been destroyed, and that schools and hospitals aren't working.

I want to draw your attention to the issue of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in eastern Ukraine before our eyes. Our observers visited the eastern regions and talked in their reports about the situation in many parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions getting worse. In many villages, we saw destroyed hospitals. There is no medicine. Many children, who stayed in the region, are in shock. They have nowhere to play or learn. People in the region don't have access to social benefits, Bociurkiw said.

He said that many villages outside the ATO zone but on its border have been shelled, and that OSCE SMM observers helped representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to get to some of these villages.