The office unveiled the figures in its latest civilian casualty update on Monday.
According to the UN rights office, between February 24, 2022 and January 15, 2023, there were 18,358 civilian casualties in Ukraine: “7,031 killed and 11,327 injured.”
Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by “the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects, including shelling from heavy artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, missiles and air strikes,” officials said.
104 killed in 2023
Between January 1 and 15, 2023, the OHCHR recorded 388 civilian casualties in Ukraine.
Actual figures ‘considerably higher’: UN
The UN rights office said it believed that “the actual figures are considerably higher, 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 applies, for instance, to the cities of Mariupol (Donetsk region), Izium (Kharkiv region), Lysychansk, Popasna, and Severodonetsk (Luhansk region), where “there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties,” the OHCHR said.
Its estimate came as the death toll from Russia's missile strike on a block of flats in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro rose to 40, the BBC reported.
Ukraine, Russia preparing large prisoner swap
Meanwhile, Ukraine and Russia have been working on a major prisoner exchange agreement that will include a total of 1,000 people, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported, citing the Turkish ombudsman, Seref Malkoc.
The Guardian noted that Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets and his Russian counterpart Tatyana Moskalkova met last week on the sidelines of an international conference in the Turkish capital Ankara.
Tuesday is day 328 of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
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Source: OHCHR, BBC, The Guardian