WFP appeals for access to encircled cities in Ukraine
WFP said this in a statement issued on April 15, Ukrinform reports.
According to the statement, WFP has so far delivered food assistance to 1.4 million people in Ukraine and is ramping up to reach 2.3 million people this month. But getting safe access to cities like Mariupol, where more than 100,000 people are believed to be trapped, will be key.
Over 7 million people are displaced inside Ukraine and the pre-conflict supply chain systems for feeding the country’s population have broken down in many areas. WFP estimates one third of the people in the country and more than half (60 percent) of internally displaced people are worried about finding enough to eat.
"We're calling on everyone to give us the access we need to reach the people in besieged cities. It's one thing when people are suffering from the devastation of war. It's another thing when they're being starved to death," WFP Executive Director David Beasley said at the end of a three-day visit to Ukraine.
Earlier reports said that Russian aggression caused one of the biggest humanitarian catastrophes in Mariupol. The invaders are bombing unarmed residents and blocking humanitarian aid.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said that up to 20,000 civilians had been killed in the city since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, 13 Russian mobile crematoriums were registered in Mariupol to clean the streets from the bodies of dead civilians. The invaders are trying to identify and destroy all potential witnesses to Russian atrocities.
About 120,000 civilians remain trapped Mariupol. The invaders seize their Ukrainian passports and forcibly take them to Russia and "DPR/LPR."
