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News Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
19 December 2022
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Press briefing notes
Date: 19 December 20221
From 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 18 December 2022, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 17,595 civilian casualties in the country: 6,826 killed and 10,769 injured. This included:
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.
OHCHR believes 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 concerns, for example, Mariupol (Donetsk region), Izium (Kharkiv region), Lysychansk, Popasna, and Sievierodonetsk (Luhansk region), where there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties.
Civilian casualties from 1 to 18 December2022(individual cases verified by OHCHR)
From 1 to 18 December 2022, OHCHR recorded 462 civilian casualties:
This included:
Per type of weapon/incident:
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine
Since 2014, OHCHR has been documenting civilian casualties in Ukraine. Reports are based on information that the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) collected through interviews with victims and their relatives; witnesses; analysis of corroborating material confidentially shared with HRMMU; official records; open-source documents, photo and video materials; forensic records and reports; criminal investigation materials; court documents; reports by international and national non-governmental organisations; public reports by law enforcement and military actors; data from medical facilities and local authorities. All sources and information are assessed for their relevance and credibility and cross-checked against other information. In some instances, corroboration may take time. This may mean that conclusions on civilian casualties may be revised as more information becomes available andnumbers may change as new information emerges over time. Statistics presented in the current update are based on individual civilian casualty records where the “reasonable grounds to believe” standard of proof was met, namely where, based on a body of verified information, an ordinarily prudent observer would have reasonable grounds to believe that the casualty took place as described.
ENDS
Ukrainian and Russian language versions of this update as they become available, please visit this page.
1/ An increase in figures in this update compared with the previous update (as of 11 December 2022) should not be attributed to civilian casualties that occurred from 12 to 18 December only, as during these days OHCHR also corroborated casualties that occurred on previous days. Similarly, not all civilian casualties that were reported from 12 to 18 December have been included into the above figures. Some of them are still pending corroboration and if confirmed, will be reported on in future updates.
Liz Throssell + 41 22 917 9296 / elizabeth.throssell@un.org or
Ravina Shamdasani – + 41 22 917 9169 / ravina.shamdasani@un.org or
Jeremy Laurence + +41 22 917 9383 / jeremy.laurence@un.org or
Marta Hurtado – + 41 22 917 9466 / marta.hurtadogomez@un.org
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