A woman from the island region of Kherson. She lives without gas supply. Ukraine: multi-day power outages, interruptions in water and heat supplies Humanitarian aid
Imagine living in war conditions and being unable to cook food or heat your home. For tens of thousands of residents of Ukraine, this is a reality today: UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the country Matthias Schmale reported that half the population of the city of Kherson – 30 thousand or more people – have been living without electricity for several days.
Kherson is not the only city where there is no electricity, he said in an interview with the UN News Service on Wednesday during his trip to southern Ukraine. “The main problem is how to support people if the electricity is cut off for several days in a row, or even for more than a week, as is now happening, for example, in Odessa,” he noted.
“The authorities are reasonably confident that they can cope with a situation where the power goes out for a few hours or even a couple of days. But outages lasting more than a week cause great difficulties,” added Schmale.
Matthias Shmale with an elderly resident of Kherson.
According to the UN Coordinator, in order to overcome the energy crisis, it is necessary to provide schools and medical institutions with generators and sufficient fuel so that people can gather there in case of a crisis. people come for help. One of the women, a power plant employee, told him that she was afraid to go to work because of shelling of energy facilities.
According to her, there were only five houses left on her street where people still lived, and “almost everything was destroyed.” But she is not going to leave.
A woman came to the UN humanitarian hub for help.
“I don’t even think about it. My house, my dogs, my cats. Neighbors left after their homes were damaged. They left the dog for a week. They have been gone for three years,” she said.
Another woman the Humanitarian Coordinator met with said that she is from the island region of Kherson and lives without gas – she has nothing to heat her house and no way to cook. Ten days ago, her mother died in hospital after being hit by a mine. Six months earlier, her husband died in Nikolaev while riding on public transport during a drone attack. cry”
“Kherson used to be a very industrial city, but now this is no longer the case,” said another pensioner. In her youth, she worked in the production of meteorological instruments for marine vessels.
Matthias Schmale noted her sense of humor, despite difficult circumstances. “I prefer to smile rather than cry. “I’ve already had enough time to cry,” she replied.
“I just want to go home and die there,” the woman added with bitterness in her voice.