The death toll in the two-year conflict in eastern Ukraine surpassed 9,600 people with more than 22,400 wounded as of Thursday, the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner’s (OHCHR) monitoring mission in Ukraine said.
KIEV – Head of the mission Fiona Frazer told reporters in Kiev it recorded a total of 32,071 civilian casualties of the conflict, 9,640 of whom had been killed and 22,431 wounded.Ukraine’s southeast has been severely affected by Kiev’s special military operation, launched in the southeastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions in April 2014. The operation was a response to local residents' refusal to recognize the new coup-installed government in the country.
In February 2015, Kiev forces and eastern Ukraine's militia signed a peace agreement in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, as well as constitutional reforms that would give a special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Despite the agreement, the ceasefire regime is regularly violated, with both sides accusing each other of multiple breaches, undermining the terms of the accord.
