UN leader calls for ceasefire amid rising death toll

UNITED NATIONS • UN chief Antonio Guterres says the global body is seeking a humanitarian ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, as the civilian toll continues to rise a month after Moscow's invasion of its neighbour.

Mr Guterres told reporters on Monday he had asked UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths "immediately to explore with the parties involved the possible agreements and arrangements for a humanitarian ceasefire in Ukraine".

He said he hoped Mr Griffiths would go to both Moscow and Kyiv as soon as possible after he returns from a mission to Afghanistan.

Thousands of Ukrainians have been killed and around 10 million have fled their homes since Russia's invasion on Feb 24.

Mr Guterres condemned the civilian toll and displacement, as well as the destruction of Ukraine's infrastructure and global ripple effects of the conflict that have sent food and energy prices soaring.

"This must stop," the UN chief said, emphasising, however, that "the solution to this humanitarian tragedy is not humanitarian. It is political".

A cessation of hostilities would also "help to address the global consequences of this war, which risk compounding the deep hunger crisis in many developing countries" already struggling to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, he added.

Amnesty International yesterday slammed "war crimes" in Ukraine, likening the situation to the Syrian war.

"What is happening in Ukraine is a repetition of what we have seen in Syria," Ms Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of the global rights watchdog, told AFP.

She was speaking in Johannesburg at the launch of the rights group's annual report on the state of human rights in the world. "We are beyond indiscriminate attacks. We are in the midst of deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure," she said, accusing Russia of turning humanitarian corridors into "death traps".

"We see the same thing here, just as Russia did in Syria."

In another development, Germany on Monday urged a more even distribution of Ukrainian refugees within the European Union.

"We need to more actively distribute refugees within the EU and show solidarity by taking in refugees," German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters as she arrived for a meeting with her EU counterparts in Brussels.

Ms Faeser added that Berlin was not aiming at fixed quotas, but rather an index linked to the number of refugees already being hosted compared with the population size of each country.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said yesterday it had reopened humanitarian corridors and evacuated civilians from war-scarred regions after a one-day pause over what Kyiv called possible Russian "provocations".

"Three humanitarian corridors were agreed for today," Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a video statement posted on Telegram, a day after announcing their closure citing intelligence reports.

The first corridor will be from the battered city of Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia using private cars, with Mariupol residents who had made it to Berdyansk also joining, she said.

Another will travel from the Russian-occupied town of Melitopol to Zaporizhzhia. The third will leave Energodar, where the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant captured by Russian troops is, and also head to Zaporizhzhia.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS