Roundup: Children's lives at risk in East Ukraine as winter looms: UNICEF warns

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday that the arrival of winter in East Ukraine combined with damaged water networks in the country's conflict-affected regions are putting the lives of some 700,000 children at risk.

"We need to do all we can to protect the most vulnerable children during the winter months," said Giovanna Barberis, UNICEF representative in Ukraine.

"This means ensuring humanitarian access to areas where water infrastructure is damaged to repair it. It is unimaginable to even contemplate one single family without heating at this time of the year," she added.

UNICEF indicated that central heating systems in eastern Donetsk and Luhansk districts depend on adequate water supply.

Conflict in the region, however, has damaged pipelines and infrastructure, increasing the likelihood of freezing that could result in a system shutdown.

Such a scenario was witnessed by Luhansk district's town of Alchevsk in 2006 when equipment froze and ruptured, resulting in the evacuation of many of the town's 120,000 inhabitants.

"The reality is that we need to repair damage to water infrastructure in Luhansk and Donetsk districts right now," said William Fellows, head of UNICEF Ukraine's Water, Sanitation and Hygiene section.

"Not only are people's lives in danger due to lack of heating and drinking water because of damaged infrastructure, but the time and costs to re-start any system failure would be extensive," Fellows warned, adding temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees centigrade are possible.

This increases the risk of water supplies freezing and the subsequent shutdown of heating systems essential to the survival of populations living in Ukraine's conflict-affected areas, UNICEF reported. Endit