A World Health Organization warehouse storing medical supplies in Dnipro, in central-eastern Ukraine, was hit and destroyed on Friday, the UN agency’s director-general said on Sunday.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X that there had been no reported casualties so far.
He said a WHO staff member and drivers had visited the site earlier that day and managed to evacuate 130 of around 300 pallets before leaving the area ahead of the attack.
According to Tedros, the warehouse contained humanitarian medical supplies for health facilities on the frontline, mainly WHO emergency supplies.
Under its rules, the WHO records attacks on healthcare worldwide but does not assign responsibility for them.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the WHO has recorded 3,148 attacks on health services in the country, most involving heavy weapons.
Of those, 2,567 struck health facilities, 71 hit warehouses and 645 disrupted medical supply deliveries, causing 240 deaths and 1,055 injuries.
“I cannot say this strongly enough: attacks on health care must stop. Otherwise, people are deprived of vital care,” Ghebreyesus said.
“Even wars have rules. One of them is that health care must be protected,” he added.
Last month, Médecins Sans Frontières condemned what it called a deliberate Russian strategy to destroy Ukraine’s health system, saying it had documented a consistent pattern of attacks since the start of the war.
