More Than 1,200 Civilian Casualties Recorded in Ukraine amid Russian Invasion, U.N. Says
“Ongoing hostilities are exposing civilians in Ukraine to immense harm,” a United Nations spokesman said Monday
A spokesperson for the United Nations on Monday estimated the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion to be 1,200 — but noted that it has been difficult to determine the “actual number of deaths and injuries.”
Indeed, while accurate figures on the dead and wounded are fluid and hard to verify, officials connected to both countries as well as international observers have been compiling periodic reports of casualties.
The U.N.’s latest tally came on the same day the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that at least 406 civilians had been killed in the fighting between Feb. 24, when the invasion began, and Sunday.
“Our humanitarian colleagues are warning that ongoing hostilities are exposing civilians in Ukraine to immense harm,” Stéphane Dujarric, a U.N. spokesman, said in a briefing on Monday. “According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights [OHCHR], between 24 February and 6 March at the end of the day, 1,207 civilian casualties were recorded, which includes 406 people killed. But, the office notes that it is difficult to verify the actual number of deaths and injuries.”
Citing the World Health Organization, Dujarric said that, since Feb. 24, “there have been nine attacks affecting health facilities, health-care workers and ambulances” in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s health minister said last month that at least 14 children were among the dead. Some have been killed while trying to flee the fighting.
According to Oleksandr Markushyn, mayor of the Ukraine town of Irpin, eight civilians — including two children — died amid an evacuation earlier this week.
Russia has acknowledged its own casualties, with the country’s Defense Ministry announcing last week that 498 Russian troops had died and 1,597 more had been injured since the country began what it has called a “special military operation.”
On Tuesday, a third round of possible talks between Russia and Ukraine ended, with Ukrainian officials saying that they were moving toward establishing humanitarian corridors by which civilians could escape the conflict, the Associated Press reported.
Efforts so far have had mixed success in ensuring safe civilian escape out of Ukraine.
On Sunday, after a group of residents crossed a bridge, they were hit by an apparent Russian military strike, the New York Times reported, which killed a mother with two kids and other individuals. (Russia has repeatedly denied that it targets civilian sites.)
“The shell hit, and in front of my own eyes died two small children and two adults,” Markushyn, the mayor of Irpin, said in a video, per The Washington Post. “I want to emphasize these were peaceful residents.”
The people, the paper noted, were on their way to evacuate Irpin by bus.
The Russian invasion, ordered by President Vladimir Putin, has drawn condemnation around the world and increasingly severe economic sanctions against Russia.
With NATO forces massing in the region around Ukraine, various countries have also pledged aid or military support to the resistance. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged his country to fight back.
Putin insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the best security interests of his country. Zelenskyy vowed not to bend.
“Nobody is going to break us, we’re strong, we’re Ukrainians,” he told the European Union in a speech in the early days of the fighting, adding, “Life will win over death. And light will win over darkness.”