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Hundreds have died since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, officials say, though precisely how many is difficult to know given the chaos of ongoing attacks.
Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said 406 civilian casualties had been counted as of Sunday night, including 102 deaths with seven children among them.
“Most of these civilians were killed by explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and air strikes,” she said Monday. “The real figures are, I fear, considerably higher.”
Ukraine’s health ministry reported more than 350 civilians killed, including 14 children, since the attacks began last week, Reuters reported on Sunday.
In addition, more than 1,680 people, including 116 children, were wounded.
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In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, the news service reported an attack on residential neighborhoods that may have killed dozens more on Monday, adding to the murky death toll.
In the city of Mariupol, a Ukrainian father rushed to the hospital with his 6-year-old daughter Both were injured by Russian artillery, the Associated Press reports. Doctors tried unsuccessfully to save the girl’s life and blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for her death.
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“Show this to Putin,” a doctor said to a photographer in the room, according to the report. “The eyes of this child, and crying doctors.”
“This escalating violence — which is resulting in civilian deaths, including children — is totally unacceptable,” the U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said Monday. “Enough is enough. Soldiers need to move back to their barracks. Leaders need to move to peace. Civilians must be protected.”
The Kyiv Independent reports that Ukraine claims approximately 5,300 Russians have died in five days of fighting so far, though the English-language media outlet added that Russia has not acknowledged any casualties among its ranks.
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Semen Kabakaev, an adviser to the commander in chief of the armed forces of Ukraine, told PEOPLE over the weekend that he planned to send his family away from Kyiv, the country’s capital, over fears that Russian invaders are targeting officials there.
“This morning we got the information about Russian sabotage groups in Kyiv. Me and my wife and my family decided we need to bring them to safety,” Kabakaev said Saturday through a translator. “We understand the enemy will target, hunt people like me because I am the public person inside the Ukraine army. And Russians can liquidate people like me. That is why my wife and my 6-year-old daughter today they go to Western Ukraine. They took a train to hide. It’s safer places than [in] Kyiv.”
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The Russian invasion began Thursday, with forces moving from the north, south and east.
Details of the attack and the fighting change by the day, but this is the first major land conflict in Europe in decades. In addition to those who’ve died and were wounded in the war, thousands more people have fled or tried to escape Ukraine amid warnings of a possible “refugee crisis.”
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“You don’t know where to go, where to run, who you have to call,” Liliya Marynchak, a 45-year-old teacher in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, told PEOPLE recently of the moment her city was bombed.
“This is just panic,” she said.
The invasion, ordered by Putin, has drawn widespread condemnation around the world and increasingly severe economic sanctions against Russia.
Various countries have also pledged aid or military support to Ukraine as Zelensky pleaded for peace talks and urged his country to resist.
Putin insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the interest of so-called “peacekeeping.”
“The prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine,” President Joe Biden said as the invasion began in force.
* With reporting by DIANE HERBST
