The War in Ukraine – up to 80% of children pushed into water poverty

According to the latest studies, it is thought that between 60 and 80% of children in Ukraine are now living in poverty since the war with Russia broke out over a year ago.  It is understood that over 40% of families are struggling to meet the day-to-day needs of food, water and basic supplies.  

 The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that 1.4 million Ukrainians now have no access to safe water, with a further 4.6 million experiencing limited access.

Families have been pushed out of their homes and jobs and forced to move to areas less impacted by fighting.  However, damage to critical infrastructure has disrupted the water supply, leaving homes without power, drinking water or heat in the middle of winter and made it difficult to access basic health care.

UNICEF and other global NGO’s have been working with partners to scale up health and protection services, restore community water and sanitation systems, and help kids continue with school.  Where water supplies have been disconnected or contaminated, water purification tablets have been supplied to give people instant access to clean drinking water.

According to the UNICEF website, they have enabled access to safe water for over 4.6 million people living in areas where water systems had been damaged or destroyed, and provided water, sanitation and hygiene supplies to nearly 1.6 million people

Suppling Ukraine with millions of water purification tablets

Hydrachem have been supplying millions of water purification tablets to Ukraine via our humanitarian aid partners since the start of the invasion in February 2022. We are fortunate to have the technology and capacity to scale up operations very quickly so we can deliver at times of emergency, without much notice.

We are not alone in our quest to tackle the global issue of debilitating, unsafe water, which is why we’d like to shout out the great work of some of our many water disinfection peers: Aquatabs, Katadyn Group, Pyam, Aquamira Technologies, Inc. and many more doing great work! It may seem odd trumpeting the successes of our competitors, but in truth we’re all working towards the same goals and quite frankly there’s enough water to be disinfected for everyone!