UN presents plan “to immediately save people” from flooding in Kherson, Ukraine

June 10 () –

The UN Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, has assured that the UN’s three-phase plan for the floods caused by the destruction of the dam of the Kajovka hydroelectric power station, Ukraine, will focus on “saving people right away”

“The priorities of the first phase over the next few days will be to continue rescuing people and delivering medical supplies and food aid, including to ships operated by the World Food Program (WFP). (…) We have to save people and take them to places where they are safe and can eat, and get drinking water,” Griffiths said, according to a UN statement.

More than 700,000 people lack drinking water which, along with other people in need, will be the target of the second stage of the plan.

The third phase will consist of carrying out an assessment of the environmental and economic impact of the floods, which will affect both Ukrainians and “the global South” in terms of food security due to the destruction of large tracts of farmland, and that is Ukraine was one of the main producers and exporters of cereals worldwide before the start of the conflict, according to the UN.

Regarding the complaints about the “slow humanitarian response” expressed by the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, Griffiths has declared that “I understand the frustration of the president” and that they focused on “trying to get the response to move as quickly as possible.” In addition, he added that in the last two days two convoys for 30,000 people have arrived in Kherson.

“The idea of ​​you going through over a year of war and suddenly being woken up in the middle of the night by this explosion and this torrent, taking away any future you may have known before… In these circumstances, the message of the The world is very simple: we are by your side in these moments of need”, Griffiths stressed.