Civilian casualties from February 24, when Russia started the war against Ukraine, to 24:00 on May 26 amounted to 8,766 civilians (a day earlier – 8,691), including 4,031 dead (3,998), reports the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday.
“OHCHR believes that the actual figures are much higher as information is delayed from some areas of heavy fighting and many reports are still awaiting confirmation,” the UN data document notes.
According to him, this applies, for example, to Mariupol (Donetsk region), Izyum (Kharkiv region) and Popasna (Luhansk region), where there are reports of numerous civilian casualties. They are subject to further verification and are not included in the above statistics.
“The majority of civilian deaths or injuries were caused by the use of explosive devices with a wide area of effect, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, as well as rocket and air strikes,” the report says.
According to confirmed UN figures, 1,529 men, 995 women, 100 boys and 92 girls died, while the sex of 69 children and 1,246 adults has not yet been determined.
Among the 4,735 injured were 132 boys and 110 girls, as well as 164 children whose gender has not yet been determined.
Compared to the report two days earlier, a child died and two more were injured.
OHCHR indicates that in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as of midnight on May 27, there were 2,145 (2,122) dead and 2,132 (2,124) injured in government-controlled territory, and 129 (129) dead and 541 (537) injured in territory controlled by self-proclaimed “republics”.
In other regions of Ukraine under government control (in Kyiv, as well as in Zhytomyr, Zaporozhye, Kyiv, Sumy, Odessa, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy and Chernihiv regions), the UN recorded 1757 (1747) dead and 2062 (2032) wounded .
The summary traditionally states that the increase in the figures from the previous summary should not be attributed only to the May 26 cases, since during this period the Office verified a number of cases from previous days.