GENEVA
Civilians continue to be killed, detained and "disappeared" in eastern Ukraine despite an agreed cease fire reached in Minsk in early September, a United Nations human rights monitoring group has reported.
Thirteen people were killed every day on average since the start of an agreed cease-fire reached in Minsk between Ukraine and Russia on September 5, the Office of the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights reported (OHCHR) on Thursday.
The report said: "The continuing presence of a large amount of sophisticated weaponry, as well as foreign fighters that include servicemen from the Russian Federation, directly affects the human rights situation in the east of Ukraine.
"The situation in the conflict-affected area is becoming increasing entrenched, with the total breakdown of law and order and the emergence of parallel governance systems in the territories under the control of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk."
Epidemic threat
The report also warned that the crisis was leading to the threat of "interrupted treatment" for almost 60,000 HIV-positive people and around 11,600 multidrug-resistant tuberculosis patients in all regions.
"Discontinuation of treatment is life-threatening for more than 70,000 patients and may lead to an uncontrolled spread of epidemic," said the report.
The number of internally displaced people has also risen to 466,829, according to Ukraine's State Emergency Service.
More than 4,000 people have been killed and more than 9,000 wounded in the conflict between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since mid-April, according to the report.
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