The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said on Tuesday it was able to confirm the death of 8,490 civilians in Ukraine since the Russian invasion, although the actual death toll is high. higher.
In addition, the fact that 14,244 civilians were injured was confirmed.
“OHCHR believes the actual numbers are much higher as information is delayed from some locations where there has been heavy fighting and many reports are still awaiting confirmation,” the OHCHR statement said. “This applies, for example, to Mariupol (in the Donetsk region), Lysichansk, Popasna and Severodonetsk (in the Luhansk region), where there are reports of numerous civilian casualties.”
Most of the dead were killed in territories controlled by the Ukrainian government and attacked by Russian troops. 3,927 civilians died in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, ending up in a zone of fierce fighting.
In the first nine days of April, UN experts confirmed the deaths of 44 civilians, all but one from “wide range explosive weapons”.
In March, a UN-authorized investigative body found that Russian forces had used “indiscriminate and disproportionate” attacks in Ukraine.
On Monday, Kiev and Moscow carried out a large-scale prisoner exchange: 106 Russian prisoners of war were exchanged for 100 Ukrainians. Both parties reported on the exchange. The exchange of prisoners is one of the few areas in which contacts between Ukraine and Russia continue.
Details of the latest exchange were not disclosed in the parties’ statements.
The head of the Ukrainian President’s office Andrii Yermak said that among the liberated Ukrainians were the defenders of the city of Mariupol and, in particular, of the Azovstal metallurgical plant, captured in the first months of the war, and that some of them suffer from serious injuries and illnesses. Ukraine’s Coordinating Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War says nearly fifty percent of the 80 male and 20 female servicemen who have returned to Ukraine “have serious injuries, illnesses or have been tortured”.
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