MOSCOW, November 21 (Sputnik) — The United Nations World Food Programme announced Friday that it has distributed food vouchers worth $450,000 to internally displaced people of Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk.
“The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has distributed food vouchers to 10,000 internally displaced people in northern Donetsk as part of an emergency operation to feed 120,000 people over the next six months,” the organization said in a press release, adding that each voucher is worth $45.
The families, mainly displaced because of the ongoing fighting in the region, can redeem the vouchers from local shops in the area.
Earlier in the month, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a law on internally displaced persons.
According to the official website of the Ukrainian president, some 465,000 people from eastern Ukraine are currently considered internally displaced. The United Nations estimates this figure at 460,365 people.
In April, Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation in the country's southeast, where independence supporters refused to recognize the new government, which ceased power in Kiev following a coup in February. On September 5, the warring sides agreed to a ceasefire. The conflict forces hundreds of thousands of civilians flee their home for neighboring regions or Russia.
