UN WFP truck carrying food for frontline communities hit by drone in Dnipro region, driver injured

The truck was traveling in a convoy alongside two WFP armored passenger vehicles, carrying a total of seven staff members. After successfully offloading food commodities in Zoriane and Slovianka, Dnipro region, the truck was damaged by an FPV drone, injuring its driver. The two other vehicles left the location and the driver was immediately taken to a hospital. While immobilized, the truck was hit multiple times by separate drones.

All vehicles were clearly marked as UN WFP vehicles. 

“It is shocking and shameful that civilians and humanitarians must risk their own safety to deliver lifesaving assistance to frontline communities facing desperate conditions,” said Richard Ragan, WFP Country Director in Ukraine. “These repeated attacks on humanitarian convoys and distribution sites threaten the people we support, and risk cutting them off from the assistance they depend on,” Ragan added.

In the last two years, WFP recorded more than 80 attacks on its vehicles, warehouses, distribution points and the vehicles and assets of its local humanitarian partners in Ukraine.

Despite increased security risks, WFP continues to support nearly 600,000 people with critical food and cash assistance every month in Ukraine’s frontline regions. In the last month WFP distributed food boxes to 157,000 people in frontline locations.

Background information: The United Nations World Food Program is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability, and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters, and the impact of climate change.

For more information please contact:  

Antoine Vallas, WFP/Kyiv, +380 952501154, antoine.vallas@wfp.org

Oleksandr Mariash, WFP/Kyiv, +380 999724356, oleksandr.mariash@wfp.org