Toll tops 4,700 in Ukraine conflicts: UN

At least 4,707 people have been killed and 10,322 wounded in the violent conflicts in eastern Ukraine since mid-April, a senior UN official said here Monday.

A lot of civilians were among those dead in the armed confrontation, said United Nations Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic, urging the Ukrainian authorities to investigate the shelling of residential areas in the war-torn regions.

"There were about 300 cases of attacks in the residential area, but neither armed groups, nor the government has assumed responsibility for such indiscriminate shelling," , Xinhua quoted Simonovic as saying.

Some 1.1 million residents in eastern Ukraine have fled their homes during a nine-month-old conflict, with over a half of them seeking a refugee status abroad.

The regime of silence, enforced by government troops and independence-seeking insurgents last week, resulted in a period of fragile calm in the combat area, with no civilian or combatant deaths officially confirmed since Thursday.

Earlier in the day, the UN said in a report that at least 1,357 fatalities were recorded in Ukraine' s eastern regions since the ceasefire was declared three month ago.