The United Nations' children's agency says war in Ukraine, one of the world's largest grain suppliers, is threatening to plunge the world into a "spiraling" food crisis, exacerbating the problem of severe hunger among a growing number of children.

UNICEF said in a report released on May 17 that the cost of life-saving treatment for the most severely malnourished children is set to jump by as much as 16 percent due to Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, which comes on top of strains on the food system created by the coronavirus pandemic and climate change.

More than half of Ukraine's 7.5 million children have been displaced by the war. While some have fled with their mothers, others have been separated from their families or sent away on their own in the hope they will reach safety.

As the war in Ukraine continues, humanitarian conditions for children in Ukraine keep deteriorating. Around two-thirds of children are now displaced either within Ukraine or in neighbouring countries. Children continue to be killed, injured and deeply traumatized by the devastating violence around them. They are terrified, in shock, and desperate for safety, stability, protection and psychosocial care.

Large-scale refugee movements have taken place into neighbouring countries, including Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Republic of Moldova, Romania and Slovakia.

In Kyiv, the sounds of sirens and explosions ring out all through the day and night.

With no end in sight to Russia’s war on Ukraine, many in the Ukrainian capital are still seeking shelter in what seems to be the safest place: underground.

Subway stations, underground car parks and basements of buildings are brimming with people trying to take cover from the bombs and missiles threatening their lives since last week.

They have all reason to be fearful as, according to Ukrainian authorities, over 2,000 civilians have been killed since Russia launched its war on Ukraine on Feb. 24.

The ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine between the Government and armed groups is disproportionately harming older people, especially older women and older people with disabilities, according to a new UN report. An estimated 30% of people (more than one million) affected by the conflict since 2014 are older people, many of whom have been driven from their homes by the violence along the contact line that divides Government and non-government-controlled areas in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Cooped up in World War II bunkers and hostel basements without power and water and surviving on subsistence ration over the past week in Sumy, about 60km from the Russian border, over 700 Indian students hoped to be rescued from the embattled city when Moscow called a ceasefire to open a corridor for refugees in Mariupol and Volnovakha in the southeast. But that hope soon faded as Russian forces started shelling those areas again.