The World Health Organization announced on January 16 that some 1.4 million people in eastern Ukraine require humanitarian health assistance amid the destruction of health care facilities and lack of medical assistance.

WASHINGTON, January 21 (Sputnik) — The humanitarian aid not reaching the crisis-torn parts of Ukraine is shameful, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Monday during the event at Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

“Our [the EU] role is to try and support your [Kiev’s] efforts to reach the resolution to the conflict that is first of all in interest of people of Ukraine which is also the people of eastern Ukraine,” Mogherini stated adding that the efforts include both political and humanitarian levels, including ensuring that the humanitarian aid from Kiev gets to the conflict zones. “Which is something at the moment is not allowed, which is a shame.”

Mogherini’s comment comes as a response to Ukraine's ambassador to the US, Olexander Motssyk’s question whether the EU would designate Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics (DPR and LPR) as terrorist organizations.

“When it comes to the definition of the separatists, we have discussed it with the European Council several times, and we’ve always come to the conclusion that it’s not up to us to make such definitions,” she concluded.

International organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, have raised concerns about pro-Kiev volunteer battalions blocking humanitarian aid into eastern Ukraine.

The World Health Organization announced on January 16 that some 1.4 million people in eastern Ukraine require humanitarian health assistance amid the destruction of health care facilities and lack of medical assistance.

The regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have been suffering a severe humanitarian crisis as a result of a military operation launched by Kiev in mid-April 2014. Since August, Russia has sent a total of 11 humanitarian aid convoys, with food and medicines, to the region. In December the WHO and the United Nations Population Fund sent first aid medical kits to the Ukrainian authorities for distribution in the country’s southeast.