During a press briefing at UN headquarters, Deputy Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Florence Soto Niño, said the town of Bakhmut had been heavily shelled in the past 24 hours and that children had been killed and injured among the affected civilian population on both sides. front lines. The UN spokesman did not say exactly how many children were hit and killed.
The UN representative added that thousands of people remained in Bakhmut, who due to the constant shelling are forced to spend many hours in bomb shelters. Access to basic services, including health care, is extremely limited.
Florence Soto Niño also said that as a result of the shelling, civilians were also killed in the territory of this part of the Donetsk region, which, according to her, is “under the temporary military control of the Russian Federation”. . On both sides of the front line, in the north, east and south of the country, dozens of residential buildings and infrastructure have been destroyed in the past 24 hours, resulting in the death of civilians.
The UN representative said that on the eve of the UN humanitarian convoy, formed by several UN agencies, delivered to the city of Toretsk, ten kilometers from the front line in the region of Donetsk, food, water, medicine, emergency shelter kits, hygiene items, a generator and other items necessary for city life in winter. 75,000 people lived in Toretsk before the start of the war, but now there are 15,000 left. All of them, according to the UN representative, are in need of humanitarian aid.
Humanitarian aid was provided by the International Organization for Migration, UNICEF, the UN Refugee Agency and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
