'Toll in eastern Ukraine conflict nears 5,800'

United tions, February 24: The toll in the conflict in eastern Ukraine has reached at least 5,793 as of Feb 19 while 14,595 more people have been wounded, the UN Office for the Coordition of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said in its latest report. A total of 63 children have been killed and 169 others have been wounded, according to the report. More than a million people have been displaced within the country, it says.

The OCHA says the February 15 ceasefire deal between Kiev and the independence-seeking militias “has led to a considerable decrease of hostilities in most parts of eastern Ukraine”, although the clashes in the strategic town of Debaltsevo and other locations continued. Reports about civilian casualties from Debaltsevo are still pending.

Later on Tuesday, the UN is due to present in Kiev a revised Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) which amounts to $316 million in funding needed for humanitarian operations.

On February 19, a UN inter-agency convoy delivered 62 metric tonnes of humanitarian aid to Donetsk. The cargo included essential hygiene items, warm clothes, blankets, condensed milk powder, drinking water, and medical supplies. “Conflict area hospitals have tremendous need of trauma care medicines and consumables, laboratory reagents and diagnostic supplies, haemodialysis consumables and oncology medicines, as well as medical professiols and food,” the report says. (IANS)