[JURIST] The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] reported [text, PDF] Tuesday that approximately 8,000 people have been killed in Eastern Ukraine [press release] since April of last year. Much of the killing has been attributed to shelling of residential areas. The report discussed primarily what happened from May to August of this year but said that the civilian death toll nearly doubled when compared with the toll from the previous three months. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein [official profile] said that “[m]ore needs to be done to protect civilians and put a complete stop to the hostilities, in accordance with the February ceasefire agreement.”

The crisis between Russia and eastern Ukraine has intensified over the past few months with little sign of a true resolution in sight. In April a spokesperson for the OHCHR expressed concern [JURIST report] over the “dire human rights situation” in Ukraine after reports of intensified fighting in violation of the Minsk Agreement [BBC backgrounder], a ceasefire deal proposed for peace negotiations. Earlier this year Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] announced that it has evidence showing that Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine killed several captured government soldiers [JURIST report], a violation of international humanitarian law. Also this year Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced [JURIST report] that his government would no longer object to allowing a referendum that could grant greater autonomy to the eastern regions of the country controlled by Russian-backed rebels. In March Human Rights Watch said that the Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed rebel forces consistently used cluster munitions [JURIST report] in eastern Ukraine in early 2015, killing close to 13 civilians. Last October AI documented extra-judicial killings [JURIST report] by both pro-Russian separatists and pro-Keiv forces in eastern Ukraine, though the advocacy group cautioned that the actual number of deaths might not be an accurate figure as reported by the Russian media.