“Since September 2024, at least 35 civilians have been killed and 308 injured in Zaporizhzhia from glider air bombs”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
As the UN mission notes, on January 8, two aerial bombs hit an enterprise in Zaporizhzhia, which resulted in the death of 13 and the wounding of another 110 civilians (according to the latest data, 122 people) – this number of dead and wounded became the largest, recorded organization, after an attack on a residential building in Dnipro on January 14, 2023, and is the deadliest since the attack on a supermarket in Kostyantynivtsi in Donetsk region on August 9, 2024.
The UN draws attention to the fact that the Russian attack took place in the afternoon, when many workers were leaving the enterprise after their work shift – many victims, including both enterprise employees and passers-by, were killed or injured while on the street or in public transport for outside the object.
“Glider aerial bombs have become one of the biggest threats to civilians in cities along the front line. They are also one of the main reasons why the number of dead and injured in 2024 has increased by 30 percent compared to 2023,” said Danielle Bell, head of the MMPLU.
According to the MMPLU, 360 people were killed and 1,861 injured in 2024 due to aerial bombings – three times the number of people killed and six times the number of injured compared to 2023.
The increase in civilian casualties from aerial bombs in 2024 is a result of modifications that allow aerial bombs to glide rather than simply fall, which has expanded their range and can now reach cities further from the front lines, such as Kharkiv, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia .
For the first time, the MMPLU documented civilian casualties from such glider aerial bombs in Kharkiv in early 2024, in Zaporizhzhia in September 2024.
Since then, at least 35 civilians have been killed and 308 injured in Zaporizhzhia by glider aerial bombs.