Around 18,000 civilians have been killed or injured since the start of the war in Ukraine, unleashed on February 24 on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has confirmed.
The agency said in a statement that 6,884 civilians have been killed and 10,847 injured since the start of hostilities, bringing the total number of civilian casualties from the fighting to 17,831.
Thus, it has detailed that among the dead there are 2,719 men, 18,32 women, 175 girls and 216 boys, as well as 38 minors and 1,904 adults whose identity could not be determined for the moment.
Among the wounded there are 2,364 men, 1,709 women, 229 girls and 318 boys, as well as 253 minors and 6,074 adults whose identity has not been specified.
The agency stressed that in Donetsk and Lugansk regions, in the Donbas region, 9,696 victims – 4,052 dead and 5,643 wounded – have been registered. It has also specified that in the area controlled by Ukraine there have been 7,579 victims –3,569 dead and 4,010 wounded–, while in areas controlled by Russia there have been 2,116 victims –483 dead and 1,633 wounded–.
In the remaining regions of Ukraine, 8,136 casualties have been recorded—2,832 dead and 5,304 wounded–. «Most of the recorded civilian casualties were caused by the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effect, including attacks with heavy artillery, multiple rocket launchers, missiles and shelling,» he has noted.
Finally, he noted that he «believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where there have been intense hostilities has caused delays and many reports are still awaiting corroboration», affecting cities such as Mariupol, Izium, Lisichansk, Popasna and Severodonetsk.
On the other hand, Ukrainian authorities have pointed out that Russian forces have destroyed more than 700 critical infrastructures since the beginning of the war. «We are talking about gas pipelines, substations, bridges and the like,» stressed Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Yevgeni Yenin, as reported by the German news agency DPA.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
