UN update: Death toll in Donbas conflict nearing 7,000 men

Nearly 7,000 people were killed and more than 17,000 were injured since the beginning of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, according to Press Secretary of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Cecile Pouilly.

"Since mid-April 2014 until July 27, 2015, at least 6,832 people (both military and civilians) were killed and at least 17,087 were wounded in the conflict zone of eastern Ukraine," she said on Wednesday, referring to a conservative estimate of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) and WHO based on available data.

The death toll includes casualties of the Ukrainian forces as reported by the Ukrainian authorities; 298 people from flight MH17; civilian casualties on the territories controlled by the government of Ukraine as reported by regional authorities of Donetsk and Luhansk regions; and casualties among civilians and members of the armed groups on the territories controlled by the self-proclaimed 'Donetsk People’s Republic' and the self-proclaimed 'Luhansk People's Republic'’ as reported by local medical establishments.

The OHCHR representative noted that the data is incomplete because of lacunas in coverage of certain geographic areas and time periods and because of overall under reporting.

The HRMMU and WHO believe that the actual numbers of fatalities are higher, Pouilly said.

At this, Pouilly noted that the increases in the numbers of casualties between the different reporting dates do not necessarily mean that these casualties happened between these dates: they could have happened earlier, but were recorded by a certain reporting date.

Earlier, on June 1, the UN reported that the number of recorded deaths in the Donbas conflict was 6,417 people.