Only 11% of educational facilities in Ukraine have proper shelters – emergency chief

In Ukraine, as of today, only 11% of educational facilities are equipped with their own bomb shelters.

This was announced by the head of the State Emergency Service, Serhiy Kruk, who spoke at a conference call chaired by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Ukrinform reports.

The official noted that at the beginning of the year, civil defense facilities ensured shelter for no more than 10% of the country's population. In accordance with the prime minister’s instructions, special teams are working to assess readiness of educational facilities across the country to shelter students and other civilians.

"As of today, only 11% of educational facilities have their own protective structures. Therefore, the main part of students and faculty are to seek protection in the simplest kind of shelters", said Kruk, adding that only 23% of schools are ready for the start of offline educational process today.

The head of the State Emergency Service also reminded that the responsibility for setting up shelters for the population rests with local authorities. At the same time, the Emergency Service has developed and posted on its website "Recommendations for setting up shelters in educational facilities", "Action protocol for local authorities and heads of educational facilities on the provision of shelter," and a Practical Guide on the said issues.

Kruk emphasized the need to increase the pace of training for staffers of educational facilities and speed up inspections of their buildings and protective tructures. This will be facilitated by the relevant decisions by the Ministry of Education and Culture, as well as local authorities, on the list of educational facilities set to operate as usual and those to opt for remote education. In particular, this applies to Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk, and partly to Sumy and Chernihiv regions.

As reported by Ukrinform, on July 19, the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Alyona Matveeva, stated that from September 1, offline education can resume only in those educational facilities that fully meet safety requirements under martial law.