A World Health Organization humanitarian warehouse holding supplies worth an estimated $500,000 was destroyed, as Kyiv and Moscow exchanged missile strikes over the weekend.
A World Health Organization (WHO) humanitarian warehouse in Dnipro, Ukraine, holding frontline medical supplies worth an estimated $500,000, was destroyed after being struck twice in less than 24 hours, the WHO’s European office confirmed.
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The supplies were enough to provide assistance to an estimated 225,000 people, according to Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe.
“Everything was destroyed,” said Kluge in a LinkedIn post. “Thankfully, no casualties were reported,” he added.
The site was first hit on August 3, prompting the WHO to begin moving the supplies elsewhere. A WHO staff member and several drivers had just left the site on August 7 when it was struck again, directly destroying WHO supplies. Hours later, a third strike destroyed the building.
In total, teams had managed to move 130 of roughly 300 pallets to another location before the site was destroyed. The organisation is still assessing the full damage.
The attack is the latest to hit Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, there have been 3,149 attacks on healthcare and 240 deaths, according to WHO data. The WHO’s global surveillance portal records 72 attacks on warehouses and 646 incidents in which medical supplies have been affected.
“These attacks must stop now. Health is not a target,” Kluge said.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also condemned the destruction of the warehouse in a post on X.
“I cannot say loudly enough: attacks on health care MUST STOP. Otherwise, people are deprived of lifesaving healthcare,“ he said in a post.
