UN chief warns of aid diversion to Ukraine
ABUJA - UN Secretary General, António Guterres, has appealed to international donors not to divert resources from other humanitarian activities around the world to Ukraine.
Instead they should donate more for the Ukrainian crisis without undermining efforts elsewhere around the world.
Guterres made the remarks during a visit to Nigeria, where he’s been to areas affected by the jihadist conflict.
He said the war in Ukraine was making things worse across the world particularly in areas of food and energy.
Some humanitarian agencies are already complaining of a huge funding shortfall as countries focus more on what’s happening in Ukraine.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari said the visit by the UN chief was an assurance that Africa had not been forgotten despite the global attention on what he called the ‘’unfortunate situation in Ukraine.”
And in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said yesterday that civilians including women and children will need to be dug from bunkers under a steel works that is the last holdout of resistance in Mariupol as Russian forces pressed their assault.
After failing to capture the capital Kyiv in the early weeks of a war that has killed thousands and flattened cities, towns and villages, Russia has accelerated its attacks across southern and eastern Ukraine.
In an early morning address, Zelenskiy said Ukraine stood ready to ensure a ceasefire in Mariupol.
“It will take time simply to lift people out of those basements, out of those underground shelters. In the present conditions, we cannot use heavy equipment to clear the rubble away. It all has to be done by hand,” Zelenskiy said.