New Delhi: One of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) main warehouses storing humanitarian medical supplies in Ukraine’s Kyiv region was destroyed in an air attack early on Thursday, the WHO said in a statement. No WHO personnel were affected, while access to the site remained restricted because of heavy smoke and safety concerns as assessments of possible damage and stock losses continued.
The attack took place overnight from Wednesday into Thursday. The WHO said the facility itself had been destroyed but the extent of stock losses was still being established. The WHO office in Ukraine had earlier identified the site as being in the Boryspil district. It said only limited quantities of humanitarian medical supplies had been stored there because of the security situation. The organization did not identify who carried out the specific strike in its September 4 statement.
Third WHO warehouse hit in three months
The latest incident is the third airstrike to affect a warehouse used by the WHO for humanitarian medical supplies in Ukraine in three months. The latest Kyiv region facility and a warehouse in Dnipro were destroyed, while another warehouse in the Kyiv region was damaged during a large wave of attacks in July.
In August, a WHO humanitarian warehouse in Dnipro was destroyed following multiple strikes. About half of the medicines and medical equipment stored there were lost.
The WHO said repeated attacks on storage facilities were affecting humanitarian operations because supplies intended for frontline and hard-to-reach communities had to be moved between locations to reduce the risk of further losses.
The WHO representative to Ukraine, Silviu Domente, said attacks on humanitarian warehouses could delay or disrupt the delivery of essential health support because personnel and resources had to be diverted towards relocating medical stocks.
Medical supplies meant for thousands affected
The supplies lost in the August attack on the Dnipro warehouse were intended to support the health care needs of an estimated 225,000 people in frontline and hard-to-reach areas.
The WHO has not provided a comparable estimate for the latest warehouse in the Kyiv region. With access to the site still restricted, it had also not confirmed how much medical material had been destroyed.
The incidents come as humanitarian agencies continue operating amid repeated air attacks across Ukraine. Health facilities and the supply networks supporting them have faced recurring disruption during the war, increasing the importance of maintaining alternative storage and distribution arrangements.
The WHO did not attribute the latest warehouse strike to Russia in its statement and did not suggest that its personnel had been deliberately targeted.
20 attacks on humanitarian warehouses this year
At least 20 attacks have affected warehouses storing humanitarian supplies across Ukraine this year, according to figures from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs cited by the WHO. The health agency has separately verified 15 attacks on warehouses holding health-related humanitarian supplies during the year.
Those figures cover the wider humanitarian supply network and are not limited to facilities directly used by the WHO.
The organization said it had already identified alternative storage sites following the latest attacks, allowing medical deliveries to continue. It is working with Ukraine’s ministry of health and other partners to replace damaged stocks and maintain supplies to health facilities and communities.
So far this year, the WHO has supplied medical equipment and other material to more than 300 health facilities across Ukraine, including hospitals, laboratories, primary health care centres and transit facilities. It estimates that those deliveries have reached about three million people.