Iryna Gerashchenko: 495 women, 68 children killed in Donbass

495 women and 68 children have been killed in eastern Ukraine since the onset of the conflict there. 152 children have been injured.

Ukrainian President’s Commissioner for peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas Iryna Gerashchenko said this during the open debate “Women, Peace, and Security” at the UN Security Council.

“I want to recall young woman Olena Lafazan who was killed in shelling of Mariupol, trying to cover her daughter with her body. I want to recall young mother of Klym Klymenko who saved the boy, covering him with her body during the attacks on Kramatorsk in February 2015,” she said.

“1,937 children have become orphans because of the war. 1,213 women have become widows and 1,975 women have lost their sons. Another 142 women are waiting for the release of their relatives from captivity of Donetsk and Luhansk militants,” she added.

According to her, the illegal armed groups in the east of Ukraine have been creating facilities in which forced the juveniles to provide sexual services.

“There has been human trafficking with forced displacement of women and children across the border, studios of child pornography were created for foreign nationals to spread material outside Ukraine, children were recruited and trained to participate in hostilities,” Iryna Gerashchenko said. The President’s Commissioner noted that detailed information is extremely limited. Ukrainian authorities have no objective statistics on the problems of gender-based violence, as there are no Ukrainian law enforcement agencies in the areas controlled by militants and it is impossible to collect evidence-based cases of sexual violence.

She reminded that 1.7 million internally displaced people, including about 900,000 women and 236,000 children, had been registered in Ukraine as of today.

According to her, five women are currently held captive by militants in Donbas.