Several global non-governmental organisations have separately been told to leave Lugansk, Stephen O’Brien said in a statement yesterday.
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“Expelling these organizations puts at risk up to three million people in separatist-held parts of Donbas by denying them access to food, water, medicine, shelter, and clothes in advance of winter”, it said in a statement.
The Luhansk separatists had earlier banned 10 global humanitarian agencies citing “violations”.
Mr O’Brien, the United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said some 16,000 tons of humanitarian aid had not been delivered and that local hospitals could not perform surgery because they lack anesthesia.
The only worldwide agency to be granted permission to keep working in rebel-held Luhansk was the global Committee of the Red Cross, but separately on Thursday an ICRC aid convoy of eight trucks was refused entry to separatist-controlled parts of Donetsk region.
In what Deutsche Welle called a veiled appeal to Russian Federation, he also urged “everyone with influence over the de facto authorities to use that influence to ensure the immediate resumption of humanitarian aid”.
But violence in eastern Ukraine has largely subsided since the start of September under a tenuous ceasefire agreed in Minsk, although there have been reports of occasional shelling.
Humanitarian shipments to Ukraine have been curtailed since July because of new rules imposed by rebels, which require aid groups to register before they can operate there.
They accused one of the banned NGOs – Doctors Without Borders – of “illegally storing psychotropic medication”. The U.N.is concerned that 1.4 million Ukrainians are internally displaced or have become refugees.
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Ukraine’s government was quick to condemn the expulsion while also claiming the removal of aid agencies was a deliberate attempt by the Moscow-backed rebels to undermine the Minsk truce agreement, which, while not ending the violence completely, has brought a shaky peace to eastern Ukraine.
