9,940 people killed and 23,5 thousands more injured – UN

From April 2014 9,940 people were killed in Donbas and another 23,455 were injured.

Such data was presented today by Fiona Frazer, Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, during a presentation on the 17th report on the situation of human rights in Ukraine.

This report includes the Ukrainian armed forces, civilians and members of armed groups.

About 2 thousand of casualties from the conflict are civilians, as reported by the UN.

“Between 16 November 2016 and 15 February 2017, we recorded 130 conflict-related civilian casualties in Ukraine”, said Ms. Frazer.

The number of injured civilians is estimated from 7 to 9 thousands.

“What does this mean? It means that the parties of the conflict have to do much more to ensure protection of civilian population. They have to keep their promises in Minsk for strict compliance to ceasefire and to withdraw weaponry and military personnel from the contact line”, – said the Head of the monitoring mission.

The published report also states that bursts of military actions in the end of 2016, as well as sharp deterioration of situation during late January and early February 2017 caused damage to critical civilian infrastructure, including schools and medical facilities, further endangering civilians and disrupting essential water, electricity and heating services amid freezing temperatures. The high number of ceasefire violations recorded daily by the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) suggests that weapons systems, munitions, armoured fighting vehicles and associated material continued to be present in the conflict zone, including in urban areas, fuelling the conflict and exacerbating the human rights situation.

As a reminder, according to the UN, as of 1 December 2016, at least 9,758 people were killed in Donbas, including more than 2,000 civilians. And 22,800 people were injured.