Ukraine - The total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Crimea and Donbas in Eastern Ukraine has now exceeded 460,000, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.

Of these, some 160,000 have registered with the authorities, according to the Ministry of Social Policy. As winter sets in, the conflict, in which over 4,000 people have died and over 9,000 have been wounded, shows no sign of abating.

As of mid-November, IOM has assisted almost 6,000 vulnerable IDPs – 80 per cent of them women and children – in 13 regions hosting over 65 per cent of the displaced population.

The operation, which has involved the distribution of relief items including warm clothes and shoes, blankets, household and hygiene items, medicine, school supplies and school uniforms, has been funded by the US, Norway, Switzerland and the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund.

Targeted regions include Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Ternopil, Lviv and Kyiv. IOM will further expand its operations in the weeks to come, targeting additional regions, and scale up its direct assistance to IDPs as more and more vulnerable people are in need of support before temperatures are dropping further.

IOM also has been providing IDPs with psycho-social and legal support through its country-wide network of NGO partners and in close cooperation with the government and UN partners.

In addition to helping the government to meet the needs of IDPs, IOM Ukraine also provides technical assistance in the areas of counter trafficking, migration management and migrant-inclusive health practices and policies.

For more information on IOM’s assistance to IDPs in Ukraine please go to:http://www.iom.int/files/live/sites/iom/files/Country/docs/IOM-Report-on-IDPs-Assistance-in-Ukraine-18-Nov-2014.pdf

For more information please contact

IOM Ukraine

Varvara Zhluktenko

Tel: +38 044 568 5015

Email: vzhluktenko@iom.int