As staff and volunteers from the Ukrainian Red Cross Society (URCS) were responding to civilian needs across Kyiv that night, hundreds of thousands of vital URCS humanitarian supplies were lost, including those used in emergency response and medical care.  

“As hostilities intensify, civilians continue to bear an ever-heavier burden. Essential assistance can alleviate suffering and support recovery, but it cannot reverse the tragic loss of human life,” said Juan Pedro Schaerer, ICRC head of delegation in Ukraine. “International humanitarian law requires the parties to the conflict to take constant care to spare civilians and civilian objects.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is working alongside the URCS and other partners from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement to continue its humanitarian response for the most vulnerable across Ukraine. 

About the ICRC

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a neutral, impartial and independent organization with an exclusively humanitarian mandate that stems from the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It helps people around the world affected by armed conflict and other violence, doing everything it can to protect their lives and dignity and to relieve their suffering, often alongside its Red Cross and Red Crescent partners.

For more information, please contact:

Sarah Davies, ICRC Kyiv, tel: +380666570289, email: sadavies@icrc.org