The United Nations (UN) says the conflict in Ukraine has placed five million people in a dire situation requiring humanitarian aid.

Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said on Friday in Geneva that the humanitarian crisis has affected almost one in nine of the total population and displaced nearly 1.4 million citizens.

“Nearly 1.4 million people have been internally displaced... primarily in the eastern provinces of the country,” Laerke added.

Meanwhile, the World Food Program has increased its emergency food assistance to three times higher than before to help 500,000 people affected by the conflict in the country until the end of the year.

“Funding of the aid operation remains a concern,” Laerke said.

In March 2014, a referendum in the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, in which people voted overwhelmingly for reunification with Russia, triggered unrest in Ukraine’s east.

Pro-Russia forces in Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions in the east have been in conflict with the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations there in April 2014 and turned the situation into a major armed conflict in Lugansk and Donetsk.

The ongoing conflict has so far claimed the lives of at least 6,500 people, according the UN.