Overview
- On Friday the Council of Europe commissioner warned that civilians in Oleshky are trapped without enough food, medicine, running water or power and face a high risk of death.
- Local officials report that no official food deliveries have reached the town since late May and that some families have begun eating dogs because there is nothing else to eat.
- About 2,000 people remain in Oleshky town center out of a pre-war hromada population of roughly 40,000, with thousands more displaced and several settlements destroyed.
- Mines, active fighting and the coming winter make evacuation routes and aid deliveries deadly or impossible, and recent departures were ad hoc and costly rather than organised.
- If the occupying power does not allow unfettered relief and safe evacuation, the crisis is likely to deepen and cause more civilian deaths while drawing increased international scrutiny.