The latest estimates of civilian deaths and injuries incurred since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly one year ago only hint at the grim human cost of this war.
According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, at least 8,006 civilians have been killed and 13,287 injured over the past 12 months in the Ukraine fighting.
“These numbers, which we are publishing today, lay bare the loss and suffering inflicted on people since Russia’s armed attack began on 24 February last year,” said Volker Türk, U.N. human rights chief, speaking Tuesday in Geneva.
“And our data are only the tip of the iceberg. The toll on civilians is unbearable,” he said.
SEE ALSO: Latest Developments in Ukraine: Feb. 21According to the U.N. Human Rights Office’s monitoring mission in Ukraine, men accounted for about 61 percent of civilian casualties, women for 39 percent. The mission says at least 487 children were killed and 954 injured.
Matilda Bogner, head of the monitoring mission, cautioned the figures gathered by her team are much lower than the actual numbers “as we have not been able to fully verify many cases, due to limited information and lack of access to key areas of Ukraine that saw some of the most intense fighting.”
“Behind every death and injury there are multiple human tragedies and numerous shattered lives,” she said. “The survivors will have to live with the traumatic memories for the rest of their lives.”
SEE ALSO: US Rebukes Russia for Crimes Against Humanity in UkraineAside from the civilian casualties, Bogner said the monitoring mission also has documented numerous gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law, including “summary executions, torture and ill-treatment, sexual violence and forced disappearances, and arbitrary detention.”
She noted that the U.N. mission has found some of the highest levels of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention in the city of Kherson, which was under occupation by Russian forces from March 2, 2022, until they withdrew from the city on November 3.
“During that period, they were targeting local government officials, they were targeting activists, human rights defenders, people who had views that were pro-Ukrainian. They were detaining them and sometimes forcibly disappearing them,” Bogner said. “Some of those people have returned…others have since been found dead, unfortunately.”
SEE ALSO: Ukrainian Civilians Vanish and Languish in Russian-Run JailsShe noted that the monitoring mission does human rights investigations. It is not a criminal investigative body. But, she said some of the cases documented by the body can be useful for international prosecutions in showing the patterns of violations that are taking place.
The U.N. reports most of the civilian casualties in Ukraine—90.3 percent—were caused by explosive weapons. Most occurred in populated areas. It said attacks on critical infrastructure intensified after October 10, killing or wounding hundreds of people, knocking out crucial power, electricity, and water supplies.
James Elder, a spokesman for the U.N. children’s fund who was last in Ukraine one year ago, has just returned to the western city of Lviv. He described as intolerable the suffering endured by children he saw during a visit to a hospital.
“Surgeons for children with horrendous wounds of war—in a war where shelling from heavy artillery and missile and airstrikes have consistently struck where children should be safe—and counsellors to those broken parents who, despite everyone’s efforts, leave hospital without their children,” he said.
FILE - Members of an MSF team care for patients on a medical evacuation train on its way to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, April 10, 2022.
The U.N. monitoring mission said it has information regarding 160 civilian casualties, including 30 deaths, in the territory of the Russian Federation. However, it notes it cannot corroborate this information, so these figures have not been included in the total numbers.
“This senseless war has reverberated across the world,” said Volker Türk.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights added, “This war, which is a blatant affront to the U.N. Charter and the whole body of international law built to protect human beings everywhere, and its vast human toll must end now.”