The UN report also states that there has been a notable decrease in indiscriminate shelling after the adoption of the February 12 Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements, but notes, the shelling has not stopped, nor have armed hostilities between Ukrainian armed forces and armed groups, meaning that civilians continue to live in fear.
The report said it described the casualty figures estimated by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the World Health Organization (WHO) as "a conservative estimate" and that the actual numbers could be "considerably higher."
According to the report, about 5 million people have been deeply affected by shelling, executions, arbitrary and illegal detentions, torture, ill-treatment, human trafficking and the lack of justice and accountability, as well as deprivation of economic and social rights in the conflict one in eastern Ukraine, which made 1.2 million Donbas residents flee their homes.
The previous report mentioned over 6,100 people killed in the Donbas conflict.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko earlier said that 1,675 Ukrainian soldiers and about 7,000 civilians had been killed in the conflict. Over 1,000 people were reported missing.
