Ukraine says 112 children killed and even more wounded in war

The number of children killed in the war in Ukraine has risen to 112, the country’s officials have said.

The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office announced the revised death toll on Saturday, adding that 140 children have also been wounded.

The figures, which have not been independently verified, are an increase of three on yesterday’s estimate of 109.

The heartbreaking figure comes as more than 100 pushchairs were lined up in the western city of Lviv on Friday to commemorate the children who have been killed since the start of the war.

Lviv City Hall placed 109 pushchairs, in the city’s central cobbled square with each one representing a child who has died.

Called ‘Price of War’, the installation, in Rynok Square, was organised by local activists and authorities.

Two stuffed teddy bears were also laid in a bright blue baby carrier while a little girl sitting on a bench held a small Ukrainian flag.

‘Remember your children when they were small and sitting in strollers like these,’ Zhuravka Natalia Tonkovyt, a Canadian citizen of Ukrainian origin who was passing by the square said.

‘Some (children) will not be put into these strollers because they are dead. Compare it to your own children, remember your feelings towards your own children… I want to see no empty stroller,’ she added.

Lviv, which is not far from the border with Poland, has seen its population swell by more than 200,000 since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

Many have travelled to the city to seek shelter away from the frontlines of the conflict.

The UN children’s agency estimates more than 1.5 million children had fled Ukraine since the start of the war.

Most families have gone to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Romania.

An estimated 6.5 million people have been displaced inside Ukraine, on top of the 3.2 million who have already escaped the country.

Russia says its action in Ukraine is a ‘special military operation’ and that it is not targeting civilians.

However, Russian missiles have hit dozens of homes and apartment buildings, schools, a maternity hospital and a theatre clearly marked as a shelter for children.