UN: 2,345 civilians killed in Ukraine since start of Russian invasion

From 24 February 2022 to midnight on 20 April 2022, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 5,264 civilian casualties – 2,345 killed and 2,919 injured – as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This included: a total of 2,345 killed (703 men, 429 women, 44 girls, and 63 boys, as well as 70 children and 1,036 adults whose sex is yet unknown). A total of 2,919 injured (339 men, 271 women, 61 girls, and 66 boys, as well as 158 children and 2,024 adults whose sex is yet unknown),” reads the civilian casualty update.

As noted, most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.

OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration. This concerns, for example, Mariupol (Donetsk region), Izium (Kharkiv region), and Popasna (Luhansk region), where there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties. These figures are being further corroborated and are not included in the above statistics.

On February 24, Russian president Putin announced a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian troops destroy infrastructure, massively fire on residential areas of Ukrainian cities, towns, and villages using artillery, MLRS, and ballistic missiles.

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