UN: 3,942 civilians killed in Ukraine since beginning of war

From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 23 May 2022, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 8,533 civilian casualties in the country: 3,942 killed and 4,591 injured. 

“This included a total of 3,942 killed (1,489 men, 976 women, 90 girls, and 99 boys, as well as 69 children and 1,219 adults whose sex is yet unknown); a total of 4,591 injured (908 men, 603 women, 107 girls, and 128 boys, as well as 164 children and 2,681 adults whose sex is yet unknown),” reads the OHCHR report.

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.

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

The United States, the European Union, and other countries have imposed sanctions on Russia, making its international isolation grow by the day.

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