UN Office Reports Over 1100 Civilian Casualties in Ukraine

From 4 am on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 on 5 March 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 1,123 civilian casualties in the country: 364 killed and 759 injured. This included:

– a total of 364 killed (74 men, 42 women, 8 boys, and 4 girls, as well as 13 children and 223 adults whose sex is yet unknown)

– a total of 759 injured (67 men, 48 women, 11 girls, and 2 boys, as well as 28 children and 603 adults whose sex is yet unknown)

The geographical breakdown of the casualties is as follows:

In Donetsk and Luhansk regions: 503 casualties (88 killed and 415 injured)

In Government-controlled territory: 374 casualties (65 killed and 309 injured)

In territory controlled by the self-proclaimed ‘republics’: 129 casualties (23 killed and 106 injured)

In other regions of Ukraine (the city of Kyiv, and Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, and Zhytomyr regions), which were under Government control when casualties occurred: 620 casualties (276 killed and 344 injured)

According to OHCHR, 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 multi-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.

OHCHR believes that the real figures are considerably higher, especially in Government-controlled territory and especially in recent days, 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, the town of Volnovakha where there are allegations of hundreds of civilian casualties. These figures are being further corroborated and are not included in the above statistics.

OHCHR notes the report of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, according to which as of 12 am (local time) 6 March, 38 children had been killed and 71 injured. 

OHCHR also notes a report by the National Police of Kharkiv region, according to which as of 10 am (local time) 5 March, the total number of civilian casualties in Kharkiv region was 126 killed (121 adults and 5 children) and 312 injured.