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OHE: Thousands of civilians were killed in Mariupol

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Thousands of civilians may have lost their lives in besieged Mariupol since the start of the war four weeks ago, the head of the UN’s human rights mission in Ukraine told Reuters, giving a first estimate of the death toll among the civilian population.

Nearly 5,000 people, including 210 children, have been killed in Mariupol since Russian troops began besieging it a month ago, Mayor Vadim Boichenko’s spokesman said on Monday. According to him, 90% of the buildings in Mariupol have been damaged and 40% have been destroyed, including hospitals, schools, kindergartens and factories.

“We really believe that there could be thousands of civilian deaths in Mariupol,” Matilda Bogner, head of the UN’s human rights mission in Ukraine, which has about 60 observers, told Reuters in an online interview. He clarified that he does not have an exact estimate, but that he is still gathering more information.

Local officials, citing eyewitnesses, estimated last week that 300 people had been killed in the March 16 bombing of the Mariupol theater, where many residents had taken refuge.

To date, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has confirmed 1,179 civilian deaths and 1,860 injuries across Ukraine since the start of the war amid delays in reporting due to hostilities.

Last week, Bogner said in a statement that UN observers had received a lot of information about mass graves in Mariupol, including one that allegedly had 200 bodies.

“As far as mass graves are concerned, we have decided to call them ‘makeshift graves,'” Bogner said, adding that the term “mass graves” usually refers to victims of a crime (in this case, a war crime). Mariupol relate to deaths from a number of causes, he said.

The civilian casualties due to the Russian fire are estimated to be a “fairly small part” of the bodies in the “makeshift graves” opened in parks and gardens, he said.

Some people who died of natural causes were never transported to morgues or isolated graves because of the hostilities, and many sick people never went to doctors to treat them, Bogner added.

Robert Martini, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, told Reuters earlier today that he had no “first-hand information” about the victims of the Mariupol theater bombing.

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