UNESCO will send body armor to Ukrainian journalists.

YEREVAN, Armenia — The United Nations’ cultural company mentioned on Thursday that it was sending physique armor and helmets to Ukraine to assist defend Ukrainian journalists, lots of whom have gone from masking native information to abruptly turning into struggle correspondents.

No less than 4 journalists, together with a Ukrainian, have been killed masking the combating since Russia started its invasion final month.

“Day by day, journalists and media staff are risking their lives in Ukraine to offer lifesaving data to native populations and inform us of the truth of this struggle,” Audrey Azoulay, the director-general of the company, UNESCO, mentioned in a press release launched from Paris.

The physique armor was a part of emergency measures adopted by the company to guard journalists in Ukraine and assist displaced journalists proceed their work. A UNESCO diplomat mentioned it was the primary time in any battle that the U.N. company had despatched physique armor to journalists.

UNESCO mentioned it could ship an preliminary 125 units of ballistic vests and helmets to Ukraine, the place it famous that 1000’s of journalists, together with many Ukrainians, have been with out struggle zone coaching or protecting gear and unprepared for the dangers they have been going through.

It mentioned it was organizing on-line programs on hostile-environment and first-aid coaching and was serving to to determine in-person coaching in Lviv. UNESCO additionally mentioned it was funding a hotline for journalists who need assistance evacuating hazard zones and serving to to relocate the workplaces of two Ukrainian journalists’ unions to neighboring Poland.

On Monday, a Ukrainian journalist and an Irish cameraman have been killed in shelling close to Kyiv whereas reporting for Fox Information a day after an American filmmaker was fatally shot in a suburb of the capital. Early this month, a Ukrainian tv cameraman was amongst 5 folks killed when Russian forces shelled a tv tower in Kyiv.