A woman cries as she and others appeal to Ukrainian police troops at the site of clashes with protesters Jan. 24 in Kiev. (CNS/Reuters/Gleb Garanich)
March 4, 2015
On Monday, the United Nations issued a new report on the human rights situation in Ukraine, which has been entrenched in bloody conflict since last year when crackdowns on anti-government protests turned deadly. Within months, Ukraine’s president had been run out of the country and Russia had invaded, all of which only sparked more violence. According to the U.N. report:
- Since April 2014, more than 6,000 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine – despite ceasefires. Several hundred were killed just in the last few weeks.
- In that same period of time, 14,740 people were wounded in eastern Ukraine. The U.N. blames the “indiscriminate” shelling of residential areas for many of the civilian casualties.
- While some Ukrainians have been able to flee violence, others are trapped in villages without basic necessities. Case in point, when a ceasefire allowed people to leave the village of Debaltseve, 20 percent of the village – mostly elderly people – were unable to leave and are now living without food, water and electricity.
These series of maps from the New York Times chronicles the crisis in Ukraine.