Two aerial bombs hit an industrial facility in the southern city, killing 13 civilians and injuring 110 others.
This is the highest number of casualties recorded by the HRMMU since the attack on a residential building in the city of Dnipro on January 14, 2023, and the attack on a supermarket in Kostyniuvka, Donetsk region on August 9, 2024. , resulting in the highest number of deaths.
died after quitting work
Monitors visited the site of the Zaporizhzhia attack, documenting the damage and interviewing victims and witnesses. They observed damage to industrial facilities, buildings, vehicles and roads outside.
The attack occurred in the afternoon, when many of the facility’s employees were clocking out at the end of their shift. Many of the victims, including factory workers and passersby, were killed or injured on the streets or on public transport.
growing threat
HRMMU highlights the dangers posed to civilians by the use of aerial bombs in populated areas of Ukraine.
Mission Director Daniel Bell said glide bombs pose one of the biggest threats to people in frontline cities.
“These are also one of the main reasons why the number of casualties in 2024 increased by 30 percent compared to 2023,” she added.
Rapid increase in death toll
The latest HRMMU verification data released on Thursday reveals at least 2,064 civilians were killed and 9,089 injured in 2024.
This figure is up from 2023, when 1,971 people were killed and 6,626 injured, and this increase is primarily due to Russia’s increased use of airborne glide bombs.
Last year, 360 of the deaths and 1,861 of the injuries were caused by aerial bombs, a triple increase in deaths and a sixfold increase in injuries compared to 2023.
aviation bomb modification
The HRMMU said the increase in civilian casualties from aerial bombs in 2024 was due to improvements in the ability of these weapons to glide rather than fall, resulting in bombings far from the front lines, such as in Kharkov, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia. He explained that this was the result of the attack expanding into the city. .
For the first time, investigators recorded civilian casualties from such glide bombs in the city of Kharkiv in early 2024, in the city and region of Sumy in August of the same year, and in the city of Zaporizhzhia the following month.
Furthermore, since September 22, glide bombs have killed at least 35 civilians and injured 308 others in Zaporizhzhia, accounting for 78 percent of the city’s casualties.
Significant glide bomb attacks in the city include one on December 6, 2024 that killed 10 civilians and injured 27, including three children, and one on November 7, 2024 that killed nine civilians. This includes the deaths of 42 people and injuries.
foreseeable outcome
HRMMU said that under international humanitarian law, attackers must take all possible precautions to minimize harm to civilians, and Wednesday’s attack raises serious concerns in this regard. I recalled.
“It was completely foreseeable that the use of such weapons in urban areas during daylight hours would result in significant civilian casualties,” Bell said. “It is difficult to see how this attack complies with the obligation to minimize harm to civilians.”
