From February to April 2026, the Secretariat of the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for Human Rights received 119 appeals from residents of Oleshky and their relatives.
The Secretariat reported this to Hromadske.
Due to constant shelling, civilians are forced to live for weeks in basements without access to food, clean water, or medical assistance. Independent departure from the city is impossible — roads are mined, and movement is strictly limited by occupation checkpoints and “filtration measures”.
Ukrainian ombudsperson Dmytro Lubinets asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to use its mandate and mediation mechanisms to ensure access to humanitarian assistance for people in Oleshky.
«Further work is underway on the issue and measures are being taken aimed at the practical implementation of the agreements reached with the participation of all parties involved. At the same time, further efforts are being made to collect information about people who need assistance to leave, after which information about them will be transferred to the Russian side to organize the corresponding event», — reads the Secretariat’s response.
The International Committee of the Red Cross told Hromadske that it is currently holding talks with the relevant authorities of both sides to obtain additional information about the situation in Oleshky and the humanitarian needs of the civilian population.
“At the same time, as part of its “Safe Border Crossing” program the ICRC continues to help vulnerable people from this area reunite with their families on both sides of the front line, in direct coordination with the relevant persons”, — the ICRC responded.
Recently, the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, said that in temporarily occupied Oleshky people are dying of hunger, also residents are dying from exhaustion and heart attacks.
According to Ukrainian authorities, in Oleshky still more than 8,000 residents remain. Some of them are forced to look for food on their own, including hunting wild animals.