Civilian casualty update: Ukraine 17 March

OHCHR

From 4 a.m. on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on 15 March 2022 (local time), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 1,900 civilian casualties in the country: 726 killed and 1,174 injured. This included:

  • a total of 726 killed (141 men, 104 women, 7 girls, and 13 boys, as well as 32 children and 429 adults whose sex is yet unknown)
  • a total of 1,174 injured (107 men, 77 women, 15 girls, and 4 boys, as well as 44 children and 927 adults whose sex is yet unknown)
    • In Donetsk and Luhansk regions: 780 casualties (186 killed and 594 injured)
      • On Government-controlled territory: 606 casualties (143 killed and 463 injured)
      • On territory controlled by the self-proclaimed ‘republics’: 174 casualties (43 killed and 131 injured)
    • In other regions of Ukraine (the city of Kyiv, and Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions), which were under Government control when casualties occurred: 1,120 casualties (540 killed and 580 injured)

Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.

OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, especially in Government-controlled territory and especially in recent days, 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 concerns, for example, Izium (Kharkiv region), and Mariupol and Volnovakha (Donetsk region) where there are allegations of hundreds of civilian casualties. These figures are being further corroborated and are not included in the above statistics.

OHCHR notes the report of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, according to which as of 10 a.m. (local time) 16 March, 103 children had been killed and more than 100 injured. OHCHR also notes the report of the Chernihiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office, according to which as of 10 a.m. (local time) 15 March, 100 civilians, including 6 children, had been killed in the region.

Public Release. More on this here.