227 civilian deaths in Ukraine since invasion, says UN

The UN said Wednesday that it had recorded nearly 230 civilian deaths in Ukraine, including 15 children, since Russia's full-scale invasion began, warning that the true toll was likely far higher.

The UN rights office, OHCHR, said it had registered 752 civilian casualties in Ukraine, including 227 people killed and 525 people wounded, between February 24, when Russia invaded, and midnight Tuesday.

"OHCHR believes that real figures are considerably higher," it said in a statement.

This was particularly true in territory controlled by the Ukrainian government, it said, pointing out that "the receipt of information from some locations where intensive hostilities have been going on was delayed and many reports were still pending corroboration."

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The UN rights agency said that most of the casualties were "caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and air strikes."

It pointed out that its tally, though an underestimate, was "more than the total number of civilian casualties recorded by OHCHR in the conflict zone of eastern Ukraine" from 2012 to 2018.

The toll is also more than double the 102 deaths reported by UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Monday.

Ukraine's health ministry meanwhile had already on Sunday reported 352 civilian deaths, and it said Tuesday that 16 children had died.

According to the UN count, of those killed, 31 were known to be men, 25 women, six boys and three girls.

In addition, six children and 156 adults whose sex was not known had also died, OHCHR said.