UNHCR responds to the latest wave of deadly attacks in Ukraine

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GENEVA - Yesterday, 24 April, Kyiv residents woke up to another deadly Russian attack. Since the start of the year, these have intensified alarmingly in Ukraine, where UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, continues to respond to the pressing humanitarian situation.

In Kyiv, 12 people died and 87 were injured, and more than 1,000 people are directly affected as their homes were damaged or destroyed. Civilians and infrastructure were also hit in several other regions, including in Kharkiv. Apartment buildings, a clinic and a school were among the locations hit.

With my UNHCR Ukraine colleagues, I visited one of the affected areas and saw - again - how families with children and retirees were sweeping shattered glass from the floors of their damaged apartments and collecting plywood boards to cover their broken windows.

The latest in a more than three-year cycle of destruction, repair, destruction - but it is not breaking the will and determination of the Ukrainian people to remain in their homes.

In recent weeks, intensified large-scale aerial attacks on Sumy, Kryvyi Rih, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Marhanets and several other cities have killed and injured civilians and caused damage to residential areas and people's homes, medical facilities, schools and other infrastructure. Alarmingly, civilian casualties in Ukraine were 70 per cent higher this March than in March last year - as reported by the UN's Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

In addition, attacks continue unabated in the frontline regions - with civilians bearing the highest cost. Like Lubov and her husband Oleg, both 60 years old - who I met in a collective centre in Kharkiv yesterday. They had no choice but to flee their home, close to the border with the Russian Federation, after their house was destroyed and their village flattened. Like most evacuees, they arrived deeply distressed and with few belongings. Despite their shocking plight, they expressed appreciation for having received accommodation and humanitarian support at the collective centre.

More civilians are being forced to flee the escalation of hostilities in the frontline regions, prompting the Ukrainian authorities to issue new mandatory evacuation orders.

Since January, more than 3,500 people have transited through a centre in Pavlohrad. Last month, more than 4,200 evacuees arrived at a transit centre in Sumy, where UNHCR and our partners are providing humanitarian support to the newly displaced. These numbers are only a fraction of the total number of those newly displaced. More than 200,000 people fled their homes between August 2024 and the start of 2025.

With our Ukrainian NGO partners, UNHCR is on-site alongside the authorities and first responders delivering critical aid. UNHCR is the largest humanitarian provider of emergency shelter materials in Ukraine, supporting around 450,000 people with this assistance since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. UNHCR teams also remain on the ground supporting people after yesterday's devastating attack in Kyiv.

We are also providing psychosocial assistance to traumatized people - reaching some 280,000 individuals, including with psychological first aid immediately after attacks - as well as legal support for those who have lost their documents, and emergency cash assistance to help people cover their most basic needs.

The resounding message from the war-affected people we work with and for, and from the Ukrainian authorities efficiently leading the response, is that support from humanitarian organizations like UNHCR and our NGO partners is crucial and more needed than ever.

It saves lives, sustains resilience and helps the people impacted by these horrific attacks to recover, rebuild and realize their determination to remain in their homes. We - and most importantly, the people we serve - are grateful to our government and private sector partners who provide funding for these critical programmes.

But more support is needed to sustain a timely and predictable response to the calls for assistance from the affected people and the authorities. UNHCR and our partners have the capacity and reach to efficiently deliver, if we receive the necessary funding.

For more information on this topic, please contact:

• In Ukraine: Elisabeth Arnsdorf Haslund [email protected], +380 95 239 0072
• In Geneva, Shabia Mantoo, [email protected], + 41 79337 7650