Death toll tops 4,700 in Eeastern Ukraine conflicts: UN

Xinhua

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At least 4,707 people have been killed and 10,322 wounded in the violent conflicts in eastern Ukraine since mid-April, the United Nations assistant secretary-general for human rights Ivan Simonovic said here Monday.

A lot of civilians were among those dead in the armed confrontation, said Simonovic, urging the Ukrainian authorities to investigate the shelling of residential areas in the war-torn regions.

"There were about 300 cases of attacks in the residential area, but neither armed groups, nor the government has assumed responsibility for such indiscriminate shelling," Simonovic told a media briefing.

Some 1.1 million residents in eastern Ukraine have fled their homes during a nine-month-old conflict, with over a half of them seeking a refugee status abroad.

The regime of silence, enforced by government troops and independence-seeking insurgents last week, resulted in a period of fragile calm in the combat area, with no civilian or combatant deaths were officially confirmed since Thursday.

Earlier in the day, the U.N. said in a report that at least 1,357 fatalities were recorded in Ukraine' s eastern regions since the ceasefire was declared three month ago. Enditem