War in Ukraine killed more than 950 civilians, says UN

According to the United Nations (UN), nearly a thousand civilians were killed as a result of the war in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion on 24 February, more than 2,500 people with no military ties have been victims of the conflict, according to data from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

In all, 2,571 civilians were directly affected by the actions of the military, of which 977 died and 1,594 were injured. The survey, released on Wednesday (23), also reveals that at least 81 children died and another 108 were injured due to bombings, exchanges of fire and air strikes in Ukraine.

The UN Office says it believes the actual figures are “considerably higher as the receipt of information from some places where intense battles took place has been delayed and many reports are still pending substantiation”.

The city of Mariupol, for example, which is under constant attack by Russian forces, is one of the Ukrainian territories that the UN alleges there are “allegations of numerous civilian casualties”, but that “the figures are being ascertained and are not included in the published statistics”. ”.

In all, of the 977 who died due to the war in Ukraine, 196 are men, 144 are women, 12 are girls, 27 are boys and another 42 children and 556 adults have not been identified.

Among the 1,594 injured, 174 men, 136 women, 24 girls and 20 boys are included. The UN says the sex of 64 children and 1,176 adults is still unknown.

The Donetsk and Luhansk regions, dominated by pro-Russian rebels and recognized as independent by Russian President Vladimir Putin, are the ones with the highest number of casualties, with 279 civilians killed and 823 wounded.

Most civilian casualties were recorded due to the use of “explosive weapons with a wide area of ​​impact”, including heavy artillery bombardment and multiple-launch rocket systems, missiles and air strikes.

Refugees

Some 3.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said. The exact number released by the organization was 3,528,346.

Of this total, more than 2 million would have moved to Poland, the destination country for most of the war refugees.

The number of civilians displaced as a result of the war is even greater, in addition to those who left the country. The UN migration agency said nearly 6.5 million people were displaced within Ukraine as a direct result of the war, beating its worst predictions.

attacks against civilians

A Russian air strike on a shopping mall in the Podilskyi district of the Ukrainian capital Kiev left at least eight people dead on Sunday. Both the mall’s structure and parked cars around it caught fire after the attack, Ukraine’s Emergency Service said, adding that 63 firefighters worked to extinguish the flames that ripped through the building’s third and fourth floors.

Last week, a theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, was bombed by Russian forces. The construction displayed on the ground, next to the building, an alert indicating the presence of children in the place. The space was being used by hundreds of civilians to protect themselves from Russian attacks.

The military attacks also hit a building that housed the “Neptune” pool, used as a shelter, just over four kilometers from the theater, according to videos shared by a local official.

However, the Ukrainian army has been fighting back in an attempt to reclaim territory from the Russians in recent days. The western part of the city, which appeared to be a position taken by the Russians earlier in the week, has returned to Ukrainian control.

Experts understand that the war has entered a ranged shooting phase; that’s because the Russians couldn’t reach Kiev, at least not in the heart of the capital. The suburb of Irpin is back under Ukrainian control, according to local mayor Oleksandr Markushyn.

See images of the mall in Kiev bombed by Russian forces: