OVERVIEW
Frequent shelling in the vicinity of populated areas resulted in the highest number of civilian casualties in eastern Ukraine in a year. OHCHR reported 73 conflict-related civilian casualties in July (8 killed and 65 injured), twice as much as the monthly average of 34 casualties between September 2015 and May 2016. Shelling has become the major cause of civilian casualties in recent weeks, as it occurs more frequently during the day and in populated areas. Landmines and explosive remnants of war, responsible for the majority of civilian casualties during periods of relative calm, are now the second most important cause of casualties. Since the beginning of the conflict in 2014, 22,137 people have been wounded and 9,553 killed, some 2,000 of the fatalities were civilians.
The ongoing violence also continues to impact civilian infrastructure. Water and power supply are frequently interrupted in the hot spot areas and supply companies face serious difficulties to repair the facilities in light of the fragile security situation. The exacerbating security environment also affects situation around the checkpoints, as regular exchanges of fire take place around the Stanytsia Luhanska, Marinka and Maiorsk (0 CP of Zaitseve) and checkpoint operations get suspended frequently. Despite of alarming security situation the number of people crossing the contact line is still increasing. Only in July 873,000 persons crossed the contact line through five operational checkpoints, which is an increase of 7 per cent compared to the previous month. Meanwhile, humanitarian partners are stepping up response efforts at the five operating checkpoints providing water, sanitary facilities, shed and health care to the civilians that are queuing to cross the contact line, yet the needs remain high.
Impeded humanitarian access remains the major obstacle for the emergency response since most of the needs are concentrated in non-government controlled areas (NGCA) and along the ‘contact line’. Despite bureaucratic restrictions, humanitarian partners provided humanitarian assistance to more than 350,000 people living in NGCAs since the beginning of the year, yet this is not enough to fully meet the needs. In July and beginning of August Logistics Cluster facilitated five convoys to Donetsk and Luhansk NGCAs carrying 5 MT of WASH items, 700 MT of construction materials and 58 MT of life-saving medicines and medical supplies. This happens regardless of the fact that the 2016 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) is only 24 per cent funded and the shortage of funds is critically felt by the clusters and other humanitarian partners