UN Human Rights Monitors Visit the Scene of a Missile Strike That Killed Dozens in Eastern Ukraine

“My initial conversations with local residents and survivors indicate that virtually all those killed were civilians and that the target itself, a busy village café and store, was also clearly civilian,” said Danielle Bell who heads the monitoring mission and who led the team that visited Hroza on Saturday.

“What happened here is yet another tragic reminder of the deadly impact Russia’s invasion has had on Ukraine’s civilians,” she added.

Thursday’s attack in which a missile hit a busy local café, where residents had gathered for a wake to honor a fallen soldier, wiped out a significant portion of the small village’s population. According to initial findings, only one of those killed, also a local resident was a soldier who was attending the wake for his father. It is one of the deadliest strikes since Russia launched a large-scale attack on Ukraine.

“My heart goes out to the victims of this barbaric attack and their loved ones. We will spare no effort to determine who did this in the hope that one day they will be held accountable,” Bell said, adding that said human rights teams will continue to gather information on the attack.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission says more than 9,700 civilians have been killed and almost 18,000 have suffered injuries since Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022. But it cautions that the real casualty figure could be much higher as human rights monitors have been barred by Russia from visiting areas where some of the most intense fighting took place despite numerous requests for access.

ENDS



For more information or interviews requests, please contact:

Kris Janowski at +380952300437 krzysztof.janowski@un.org 

Kateryna Girniak at +380504868364 kateryna.girniak@un.org