Shownotes Transcript
This is UN News Today with me, Daniel Johnson. The headlines. In Gaza, another attack on a school shelter kills 30, say UN aid teams. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, aid workers help people impacted by a fresh wave of Russian strikes across the country. And in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, welcome news as a food convoy brings supplies for thousands of people uprooted by the fighting there.
Details have emerged of a deadly airstrike on a UN-run school in Gaza on Tuesday that was sheltering 2,000 displaced people. 30 were reportedly killed. The UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, maintained that Israeli forces hit the school in Al-Borej, Middle Gaza, at around 6pm on Tuesday and again at 10.20pm.
The school sustained severe damage and a fire broke out, making it difficult to evacuate the casualties, Unruh told UN News. A hole had to be opened up in the wall to evacuate the dead and wounded. Footage from the scene showed walls and floors blown out in the main school building. In the courtyard, hundreds of people could be seen standing amid crumpled metal sheeting on Wednesday morning, with rubble and wooden planks strewn around amid the wreckage of the shelter.
To Ukraine, where deadly Russian attacks continued overnight into Wednesday in Sumy, Kiev and Zaporizhia. The UN's top aid official in Ukraine, Matias Schmal, condemned the strikes, along with attacks in frontline areas in Kherson, Dnipro, and in Donetsk's Bileck City, where shelling reportedly damaged five apartment blocks. The violence once again shows the price that civilians are paying, even though they are protected under international humanitarian law, Mr Schmal said.
International and local aid teams are on the ground to help people cover shattered windows, distribute shelter materials and hygiene items. They're also on hand to provide psychological, legal and protection support.
In related reports, Ukrainian drones targeted Moscow for a third day on Wednesday, forcing the closure of most airports in and around the Russian capital. A UN food convoy has successfully delivered vital supplies to support tens of thousands of displaced people affected by escalating violence in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC.
Humanitarian teams on the ground from the UN World Food Programme, or WFP, said that trucks packed with cereals, beans and cooking oil reached the city of Beni in North Kivu province from neighbouring Uganda amid clashes between Rwanda-backed M23 rebel fighters and Congolese forces. WFP said that it intends to use the thousands of tonnes of relief supplies transported to warehouses in Beni to help around 140,000 people living in Lubera territory south of the city of Batembo.
Violence escalated there last week, uprooting some 30,000 people.
The development comes amid ongoing peace talks in Qatar between the DRC government and M23 rebels. At previous talks in April, both sides pledged to work towards peace. A total of 21 million people need humanitarian assistance in DRC. UN aid teams have condemned armed groups who've looted aid warehouses and destroyed food and medicine in attacks on relief agencies and NGOs. Daniel Johnson, UN News.