A million go hungry in East Ukraine as winter settles in
As winter begins in war-torn Eastern Ukraine, Alla Gapeshina manages a laugh while discussing how she will survive the desolate cold months. “We’ll have potatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” she says. “Food can be scarce, but we won’t starve,” says Ms Gapeshina, 58, who lives in the separatist-controlled village of Alexandrovka and works at a hospital cafeteria. “We’ll survive the winter.”
Nearly a million people are struggling to eat in Eastern Ukraine, in the coldest humanitarian crisis in the world, according to new figures.
Some 900,000 people have difficulty getting food, and thousands require assistance as the conflict between government forces and Russia-backed separatists drags on for a fifth year, according to United Nations figures to be issued by the end of the year.
Dropping temperatures also pose a threat due to damaged homes and infrastructure. In the summer, people often grow their own vegetables in small gardens, unless shelling makes it too dangerous, but this isn’t an option as the temperature dips below freezing. The number of people in need has been rising – jobs are hard to find and prices are high in the breakaway statelets, which are under Western sanctions and an economic blockade.
“If they have anything left, they are using it to buy food. People who need medical treatment won’t buy medicine, they will buy food,” said Ivane Bochorishvili, head of the UN’S Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ukraine.
More than 3,000 civilians have been killed in the fighting, and many others have died of illnesses exacerbated by the meagre, stressful existence under frequent shelling near the front lines. In total 10,300 people have died. And despite a ceasefire implemented in 2015, almost four in 10 people living near the front lines are affected by shelling every day.
In Alexandrovka – which lies along the shrinking buffer zone between the two sides – the Red Cross distributes poultry feed as aid. It previously provided residents with chickens, as they are easy to raise, even for the old.
“It’s important to keep chickens because we live in a village, at least we can give eggs to the kids,” said Neonila Strebish, 44, a mother of two, as she loaded three sacks of feed on to an old bicycle. “Our salaries are tiny, we can’t buy them, they’re expensive.”
Ms Strebish works as a teacher’s aide in the local school, which sometimes has to cancel lessons due to shelling. The crisis is most acute in the territories seized by separatists after a pro-western government came to power in Kiev in 2014. The United Nations said that 1.2 million people in need live on the government side of the lines, while 2.2 million are on the separatist side.
The UN and Red Cross continue to work in the “uncontrolled areas,” but most other Western NGOS have limited or no access. The selfproclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic accused Medecins Sans Frontieres of “espionage” and kicked it out along with nine other international aid groups in 2015. Denis Pushilin, who was elected head of the Donetsk People’s Republic in uncompetitive elections last week, admitted that there was a “very difficult humanitarian situation”. But he told The Daily Telegraph that “those who want to work in circumvention of our rules can’t work here”.
Winter worsens existing problems. The average temperature in Donetsk in January and February is 25F (-4C) but drops much lower outside the city.
Despite attempts by aid agencies to persuade the fighting sides not to target civilian infrastructure, shelling often knocks out
‘If they have anything left, they are using it to buy food. People who need medical treatment won’t buy medicine, they will buy food’
electricity as well as gas or water lines, cutting off heat to homes. At least 73 cuts in the water supply have been reported so far this year.
“Winter is like the enemy in this country with so much destruction on both sides,” said Tasha Rumley, head of the Red Cross office in Donetsk. “With the interruption of coal and gas it’s a really big concern.”
Even though Eastern Ukraine is famous for its mines, coal prices have skyrocketed. This autumn, the Red Cross distributed three tons of coal each to 6,600 households and offered construction assistance such as slate roofing, bricks, plywood, and plastic sheeting to 1,500 homes. About 100,000 people have received some form of winter assistance this year, according to the UN.
Three rockets hit the roof of Ms Gapeshina’s one-storey house in August 2014, destroying several of the old train track rails holding the structure together. The family replaced it with chipboard, but the walls are cracking, and the plastic sheeting over the ruined windows hardly keeps in the warmth from the coal-and-wood-fired kitchen stove. Luckily, her son has kept his job at an electricity plant on the Ukrainian side.
Having abandoned one half of the house, Ms Gapeshina lives in a single room with her son, daughter, son-inlaw and granddaughter.
Her wages and benefits amount to only £80 a month. “It’s a hard winter, it’s hard to stay healthy,” she said. “Everyone gets sick more often.”
But Ms Gapeshina is doing better than many her age. As well as the coldest, the Ukraine conflict has the dubious distinction of being the world’s oldest humanitarian crisis, since almost a third of the 3.5million people in need are over 60. Many don’t want to leave their homes, or have nowhere to go.
To receive their pension, elderly people have to wait hours in the cold to go through the separatists’ improvised passport control, get on a van to the “zero line”, then take a bus to the Ukrainian passport control and another one to the nearest town. At least 50 people have died or had health complications while queuing this year.
Lyuda Seleznyova, 68, whose pension is £35 a month, lives down the street from separatist trenches in the village of Staromykhailivka, where homes are regularly hit by shelling.
She has received coal from the Red Cross but only fires up her stove every two to three days, since it takes precious wood to get the blaze started.
The plastic sheeting covering her bare windows is a poor defence against the cold. “There are tough frosts here, mainly wind, also ice, snow,” she said. “I stretch out my pension until the next, but there’s not much food.”
Ms Seleznyova eats oatmeal or soup in the mornings and drinks tea for dinner. “God knows how long the war will last,” she said. “It’s gone on too long already.”