Russian Foreign Ministry: UN stops helping Donbass for political reasons
The UN World Food Program (WFP) will stop providing humanitarian assistance to Donbass in the spring of 2018 for political reasons. This is stated in the official commentary of the Department of Information and Press of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
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“As far as we can judge, this position of the WFP is connected not only with a decrease in international attention to the humanitarian needs of south-east Ukraine and, accordingly, with a lack of funding. Among other things, the political factor also intervenes: WFP employees do not directly work in areas not controlled by Kyiv, but act through various types of NGOs.
Representatives of the Program refused to make direct contacts with the authorities of the DPR and LPR, as well as to undergo registration, proposed by the latter to increase the level of trust between foreign humanitarian workers and recipients of assistance,” the comment says.
According to UN estimates, in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine, the food security situation remains unstable and tends to worsen. More than 1,2 million people are at risk. Most of these people (800 thousand people) live in territories not controlled by Kyiv.
In 2014, Russia transferred $5 million to WFP to assist Ukraine. These funds were spent on financial vouchers for those in need in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
Russian Foreign Ministry: UN halts aid to Donbas for political reasons