GENEVA: United Nations agencies will next week ask for $3.1 billion to finance aid to Ukraine this year, a senior humanitarian official told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday.

“As the war in Ukraine continues unabated, driving high levels of humanitarian need, financial support must be sustained,” Edem Wosornu, director of the Operations and Advocacy Division for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told the Security Council in New York.

“In 2024, we urge all donors to once again step up and help the people of Ukraine.”

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She added that the U.N. response plan for 2024, which will be launched by OCHA in Geneva on Monday alongside the U.N. refugee agency, aims to raise $3.1 billion to assist 8.5 million people in Ukraine.

OCHA has said that more than 14.6 million people, or 40% of Ukraine’s population, will require humanitarian assistance this year due to Russia’s full-scale invasion. The conflict has also forced some 6.3 million people to flee abroad.

Four million people, including nearly one million children, remain displaced within the country, according to OCHA.

Wosornu deplored that the OCHA’s access to areas occupied by Russian remained “significantly impeded”.

“This is hugely concerning for hundreds of thousands of people living in occupied areas close to the front line, where needs are most urgent,” she said.