UN human rights monitors say hundreds killed, detained as fears rise in Ukraine’s east

GENEVA – U.N. monitors in Ukraine say they’re documenting a steady rise in killings, torture and abductions by armed groups in the country’s east.

The U.N. says at least 356 people, including 257 civilians, have been killed since May 7. There have been more than 200 reports of torture, and 81 people were being held on June 7 as the deadly conflict raged in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russia separatist rebels and the government in Kyiv.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay says in the report Wednesday the country’s “climate of insecurity and fear” has displaced 34,000 people, nearly half in Donetsk and Luhansk.

The report says “abductions, detentions, acts of ill-treatment and torture, and killings by armed groups are now affecting the broader population of the two eastern regions.”