United Nations agencies will ask international donors for $3.1 billion next week to finance aid to Ukraine in 2024, a senior humanitarian official told the U.N. Security Council on Jan. 10.
The U.N. estimates that over 14.6 million people, or 40% of the population in Ukraine, will need humanitarian assistance this year. The number does not include the 6.3 million Ukrainians who have been forced to flee abroad after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
"As the war in Ukraine continues unabated, driving high levels of humanitarian need, financial support must be sustained," Edem Wosornu, director of the Operations and Advocacy Division for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told the Security Council in New York.
"In 2024, we urge all donors to once again step up and help the people of Ukraine."
Alexander Khrebet
This year's Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for Ukraine, which will be launched on Jan. 15 by OCHA in cooperation with the U.N. refugee agency, aims to aid 8.5 million Ukrainians, according to Wosornu.
"In 2023, humanitarian organizations reached nearly 11 million people across Ukraine with some form of assistance. This was only possible due to the staunch support of donors," Wosornu added.
"By the end of 2023, more than $2.5 billion of the $3.9 billion requested under the Humanitarian Response Plan had been received."
Four million Ukrainians, including around one million children, have been displaced within the country due to the war, according to OCHA.
Ukrainian cities and villages close to the front line and the border with Russia suffer the brunt of almost daily Russian attacks, leading to casualties and large-scale destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure.
