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United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says it’s concerned about the well-being of an estimated 100,000 children currently in Ukraine.
The U.N. organization noted that about half of the roughly 2 million people who have fled Ukraine so far are children.
“Inside Ukraine, UNICEF is … deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of the nearly 100,000 children, half of them with disabilities, who live in institutions and boarding schools,” UNICEF’s executive director Catherine Russell said Monday to the U.N. Security Council.
“We have received reports of institutions understandably seeking to move children to safety in neighboring countries and beyond.
UNICEF has about 135 people stationed in Ukraine to offer psychosocial care, mental health support and protection services to children.
(Francesco Malavolta/Fox News Digital’s exclusive)
There are nearly 670 orphanages and other residential facilities for children in Ukraine, according to Opening Doors for Europe’s Children, a campaign supporting the development of child protection systems.
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Among children leaving their homes, “many are unaccompanied or have been separated from their parents or family members,” Russell and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a joint statement.
“Children without parental care are at a heightened risk of violence, abuse and exploitation,” they said. “When these children are moved across borders, the risks are multiplied. The risk of trafficking also soars in emergencies.”
(Francesco Malavolta/Fox News Digital’s exclusive)
The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) estimates that 27 Ukrainian children have been killed, and 42 children have been injured since Russia began its invasion on Feb. 24.
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Attacks on residential buildings and hospitals have forced families and medical patients, including expectant mothers, to take shelter underground and receive medical services in makeshift shelters.
UNICEF has about 135 people stationed in Ukraine to offer psychosocial care, mental health support and protection services to children.
A woman holds a baby as she walks with other who have fled Ukraine, at the border crossing in Budomierz, Poland, Monday, March 7, 2022.
(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The organization has “delivered 40 tons of medical life-saving items for children and mothers to 22 hospitals from five of the most affected region,” Russell said Monday.
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“This equipment included midwifery and obstetrics kits, resuscitation and surgical kits, oxygen concentrators for shelters’ hospitals, and first aid kits for frontline health workers – enough to meet the needs of 20,000 children and their mothers,” she continued. “In coordination with the Ministry of Health, UNICEF is assessing further needs and preparing other shipments.”
