The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (OSCE SMM) has confirmed over 400 casualties among the civilian population in the conflict zone in Donbas since the beginning of 2017, OSCE SMM Deputy Chief Monitor Aleska Simkic has said.

Simkic said at a press conference in Kharkiv on Monday that over the current year, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission had confirmed more than 400 civilian casualties, including those dead and injured.

She noted that the failure to comply with the Minsk agreements, in particular, ceasefire violations, increased the risk of gender-based violence. In addition, the OSCE mission records numerous cases of human rights violations in the conflict zone, she said.

Undoubtedly, this situation primarily affects the civilian population and increases the risk of gender-based violence, including social and domestic violence, she said. The survivors of violence often face another tragedy - the lack of social, economic and other human rights, she said.

Simkic said that thousands of citizens (men, women and children) did not have access to electricity, gas, water, because during a protracted conflict the destruction of infrastructure erected across the contact line continues. People need to wait in lines at checkpoints for many hours, without proper shelter and without hygienic conditions, she said.

Simkic also noted that the OSCE SMM had initially called for opening more checkpoints. There are currently four of them in Donetsk region and only one pedestrian crossing in Stanytsia Luhanska in Luhansk region, she said.

According to her, in 2017, the mission recorded more appeals from women who became victims of gender violence in the conflict zone.