LVIV, Ukraine: Ukraine is facing a “hidden emergency” because of the government’s failure to plan for nearly 1.4 million people uprooted by the war in the east, which has left many struggling to find shelter, charities say.

They accused the government of breaking its promise to provide housing for people displaced by the conflict and urged it to ramp up efforts to help them.

Ukraine now has one of the world’s largest populations of internally displaced people (IDPs). Some experts have warned the displacement crisis could last for years or even decades.

Many of those who have fled fighting between the military and pro-Russian separatists have been forced to rely on charities and networks of volunteers for help with food, clothing and accommodation.

“People are reluctant to let in IDPs, especially if they have children with disabilities,” said mother of three Olga Striczina, whose eldest son Denys, 24, suffers epileptic fits and mental impairment.

The family, who fled the eastern city of Luhansk in September, is being housed in a tiny room at a center run by a charity in a village near the western city of Lviv, more than 1,000 km away. “If we didn’t eat here for free, if we had to pay for the heating and services, I just don’t know how we would have survived, because everything that we get is spent on expensive medicines for Denys,” Striczina told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. More than 6,500 people have been killed during nearly 16 months of fighting in the eastern Donbass region which borders Russia. Although the government and separatists agreed a cease-fire in February, attacks continue.