Today in Kyiv, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), Nancy Izzo-Jackson and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Deputy Assistant Administrator Robert Jenkins announced that the United States will provide more than $28 million in additional U.S. humanitarian assistance to help the hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people affected by Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine and Russia’s occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea. This announcement brings total U.S. humanitarian assistance since the start of the crisis to more than $112 million dollars.
The funding announced today includes nearly $17 million from USAID. Of this, $12 million in USAID funding is from USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, which will be provided to UNICEF, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and a number of international NGOs for shelter assistance, water and sanitation programs, cash benefits to help displaced families, small livelihoods projects, and humanitarian coordination and information management. The remaining $5 million in USAID funding is from the Office of Food for Peace for the UN World Food Program to address immediate food needs of the most vulnerable and food insecure population among internally displaced people, returnees and conflict-affected residents such as female-headed households, the elderly and the disabled.
The funding announced today also includes more than $11 million from PRM that will support the International Organization for Migration, the United Nations Population Fund, and other international humanitarian organizations. By providing much-needed medical supplies, blankets, hygiene items, and food, the support announced today will help meet the basic survival needs of thousands of vulnerable people. This funding will also help improve access to health care services, and will provide resources to aid in the prevention of and response to gender-based violence.
According to the most recent United Nations estimates, more than 3.1 million vulnerable people in Ukraine, including many children, disabled, and elderly individuals, are in need of food, water, shelter, medicine, health care, and basic services.
