Ukrainian children struggle through winter amid power, water cuts
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Munir Mammadzade described the situation for children as reaching a critical level amid sub-zero temperatures. “Children in Ukraine are under fire and freezing right now and enduring the hardest winter of war,” he said, calling the conditions “a crisis within a crisis.”
In Kyiv, where temperatures have fallen to minus 15 C (5 F) and are expected to drop further, millions of families face extended periods without heat, electricity, or water. “So children and families are in constant survival mode because of that,” Mammadzade said, noting that life in high-rise buildings has become focused on “staying safe from incessant attacks and surviving extreme temperatures.”
He explained that the combination of winter conditions and nationwide attacks on energy infrastructure has made “there is no place for children in Ukraine where they can be safe,” shifting concern from frontline regions to urban centers, including the capital.
UNICEF is supporting emergency service-run spaces outside residential areas where families can find warmth, hot food, device charging, and psychosocial support, Mammadzade said.
He also warned that “darkness and freezing temperatures intensify fear and stress” and could negatively impact both physical and mental health. “Hypothermia is one of the concerns we have for the newborns right now,” he added, emphasizing that “it is quickly becoming a life-threatening element in terms of absence of warmth and medical care.” According to Mammadzade, no child deaths from cold have been reported at this stage.
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