A civil building in Kyiv got hit by Russian troops, March 14, 2022. Photo By Vladyslav Musienko (war.ukraine.ua)
691 killed and 1,143 injured in Ukraine so far, says OHCHR
Kyiv/Vienna/Geneva: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has stated that it was still not receiving remote data transmission from its monitoring systems installed at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), but such data was being transferred to IAEA headquarters from the other NPPs in Ukraine.
The IAEA confirmed that Ukraine’s transmission system operator, Ukrenergo, yesterday informed it that the line had again been damaged “by the occupying forces” before power had been fully restored to the NPP. However, later in the day, the regulatory authority told the IAEA that at 13:10 CET external power had again been restored and that staff at the Chornobyl NPP had restarted operations to reconnect the NPP to the grid.
Regarding the Zaporizhzhya NPP, the IAEA said it was aware of reports that Russian forces carried out munition explosions at the site of Europe’s biggest NPP, and it was seeking information about the situation from Ukraine. The regulator had previously informed the Agency about ongoing work to detect and dispose of unexploded munitions found at the damaged training centre and elsewhere at the NPP following events on March 4, 2022, when Russian forces took control of the site.
Also read: Russia again damages Chornobyl powers lines, claims Ukraine
On the status of Ukraine’s operational nuclear power plants, the regulator said eight of the country’s 15 reactors remained operating, including two at the Zaporizhzhya NPP, three at Rivne, one at Khmelnytskyy, and two at South Ukraine. The radiation levels at all NPPs are in the normal range, it said.
Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in Geneva today that from 4 a.m. on February 24, 2022, when Russia’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 24:00 midnight on March 14, 2022 (local time), it recorded 1,834 civilian casualties in the country: 691 killed and 1,143 injured.
This included:
- a total of 691 killed (135 men, 99 women, 7 girls, and 11 boys, as well as 30 children and 409 adults whose sex is yet unknown)
- a total of 1,143 injured (105 men, 73 women, 15 girls, and 4 boys, as well as 43 children and 903 adults whose sex is yet unknown)
- In Donetsk and Luhansk regions: 751 casualties (173 killed and 578 injured)
- On Government-controlled territory: 582 casualties (134 killed and 448 injured)
- On territory controlled by the self-proclaimed ‘republics’: 169 casualties (39 killed and 130 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: 1,083 casualties (518 killed and 565 injured)
- In Donetsk and Luhansk regions: 751 casualties (173 killed and 578 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 airstrikes.
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 Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, according to which as of 10 a.m. (local time) 15 March, 97 children had been killed and more than 100 injured.
– global bihari bureau
