UN alarm: 102 civilians, including 7 children, killed since Thursday, but the real death toll could be much higher. And Ukrainian President Zelensky speaks of 16 children killed and 45 injured
Lives in the trap, lives broken. They are those of Ukrainian men, women, elderly and children, overwhelmed by an inexplicable war that looks no one in the face. A war that kills innocent victims with every passing day. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, “16 children died and 45 were injured in four days”. According to the United Nations, “at least 102 civilians, including seven children, have been killed since Thursday and 304 injured”, the day the Russian invasion began. But we know that the numbers in these circumstances are always provisional and the real death tolls can be much higher.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, at the opening of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, explains that “most of these civilians were killed by wide-ranging explosive weapons, including fire from heavy artillery, rocket launchers and air raids. The actual numbers are considerably higher. ‘ For Save the Children, attacks on schools in Ukraine are endangering the life and future of the country’s 7.5 million children. And dozens of children have already been killed in the fighting, which also involved the bombing of educational facilities throughout the country.
According to the latest UN figures, at least six educational facilities have been bombed in recent days and two teachers were killed on Friday in a school in Gorlovka, eastern Ukraine, which was targeted by a missile. An asylum and an orphanage were hit and damaged in Okhtyrka: among the 6 victims, there was a girl of just seven, Alisa Hlans.
Alisa was in class when a rocket containing cluster bombs hit the building she attended in Okhtyrka. She was badly injured, she was immediately transported to the hospital, but her condition was too serious and, within twenty-four hours, she died. This was reported by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Irina Venediktova, with a message on Facebook, accompanied by an invitation: “We need peace”.
According to what is reported by the Bbc, among the identified victims there is also little Polina, who attended the last year of an elementary school in Kiev. According to local authorities, she and her parents were shot dead by a Russian sabotage group on a street in the northwest of the capital. Polina was with her family when their car was targeted: her brother and sister were taken to the hospital. Vladimir Bondarenko, deputy mayor of Kiev, took the photograph of the little girl.
Always according to the Bbc, a boy, not yet identified, was killed by a mortar or missile fired from Russian positions while on a bicycle in the Ukrainian town of Chuhuiv, in the eastern region of Kharkiv. Some videos released on social media in recent days show images of a corpse on the asphalt, covered by a cloth. In eastern Ukraine, in Gorlovka, however, two teachers lost their lives after a missile hit their school, Save The Children reported on February 25.
Other stories come from southern Ukraine: five members of the same family died last Thursday, the first day of the war, when Russian troops approached the city of Cherson from Crimea. The Ukrainian police chief, Yevhen Zhukov, told the details of the attack: the family, according to what has been learned, would have tried to flee by car, but the enemy fire near Nova Kakhovk. Among them also a 6-year-old girl, Sofia, and a newborn just a few weeks old.
In two villages not far from the Russian border in south-eastern Ukraine, the country’s ethnic Greek population was also affected by the tragedy of the war. On Saturday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke with “sadness and anger” about the deaths of 10 Greek-born civilians killed by Russian air strikes near the port city of Mariupol. Two villages were affected: Sartana, on the outskirts of Mariupol, and Buhasl, about 65 kilometers to the north.
Now in Ukraine, in the eastern part of the country, schools were closed on February 21 as hostilities intensified, leaving about 350,000 children without access to education. In other areas, where schools are still open, some testimonies have reported that parents send their children to school wearing blood type stickers because they fear they may be injured. The organization, which for over 100 years has been fighting to save girls and boys at risk and guarantee their future, recalls the attacks on schools and hospitals are classified by the United Nations as one of six serious violations against children.
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