TC Web Desk
The UN human rights office (OHCHR) on May 2 said that the death toll of civilians killed in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24 had crossed 3,000.
The toll of 3,153 killed so far shows an increase of 254 from April 29.
OHCHR said that the real toll was likely to be significantly higher due to difficulties in access and pending confirmations.
Most of the civilian fatalities were because of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, such as missile strikes and air strikes, the UN rights office said, without attaching responsibility.
Meanwhile, a United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) operation to evacuate desperate civilians trapped in the Azovstal steel plant in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol is underway in Ukraine, said the spokesperson for the humanitarian affairs office in the country on May 1.
According to news reports, more than 100 civilians were allowed to leave in the first phase of the operation.
Saviano Abreu of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, it had been agreed by Russian and Ukrainian authorities that the civilians who have been in the heavily damaged steel plant for nearly two months, “women, children and the elderly,” will be evacuated to Zaporizka, which is under Ukrainian control to the north of Mariupol.
The death toll inside Mariupol is unknown, but the city’s mayor has reported that more than 20,000 civilians have been killed.
The last Ukrainian soldiers left defending the city, have been holed up inside the vast Soviet-era steel works—together with reportedly hundreds of civilians—which has a series of labyrinthine bunkers and tunnels that have prevented Russian forces from securing the last pockets of resistance, said the UN.
