More than 330 people have been killed in Ukraine since a fragile truce began a month ago, with five million people affected by continuing violence, the United Nations said Wednesday.
More than 330 people have been killed in Ukraine since a fragile truce began a month ago, with five million people affected by continuing violence, the United Nations said Wednesday.
A report from the UN rights agency also found that before the September 5 ceasefire, pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine had seen their numbers significantly bolstered by an influx of foreign fighters, including apparently Russian citizens.
"While the ceasefire is a very welcome step towards ending the fighting in eastern Ukraine, I call on all parties to genuinely respect and uphold it, and to halt the attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure once and for all," UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement.
His office said 331 deaths were recorded between September 6 and Monday, although it stressed that some of those deaths may have occurred before the peace pact was signed in Minsk on September 5 but were not logged until afterwards.
That amounts to just over 10 deaths per day on average, said Gianni Magazzeni, who heads the rights agency's Americas, Europe and Central Asia branch.
That is about the same as the average toll from April through June of 11 deaths per day, before it rose to around 30 per day in July and soared to 42 per day just before the signing of the truce, he noted to reporters in Geneva.
Mortar and shelling attacks have meanwhile killed 14 civilians since the weekend -- one of the deadliest spells in six months of fighting that has killed nearly 3,400 people across the mainly Russian-speaking east.
Counting the 298 people who died in the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in July, the overall toll stands at 3,660 deaths as of Monday, the UN rights office said.
As of mid-September, at least 36 children had been killed in the fighting, and at least 82 figured among the nearly 8,200 wounded.
Magazzeni stressed though that the overall tally was "very conservative", and that "the actual figure certainly will be much higher."
