U.N. says close to 8,000 killed in east Ukraine

Firefighters works on the top of a house, which according to locals was recently damaged by shelling, in Donetsk, Ukraine, August 12, 2015. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

GENEVA (Reuters) - At least 7,962 people have been killed and 17,811 wounded in violence in eastern Ukraine since mid-April 2014, the U.N. Human Rights Office said on Tuesday, as it published a regular report by U.N. monitors in the country.

"This is a conservative estimate and the actual numbers could be considerably higher," it said.