KIEV, August 29. /ITAR-TASS/. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) should actively participate in sending Russia’s next relief aid convoy to eastern Ukraine, a senior UN human rights official said on Friday.

“We are not directly involved in talks... but we know about such plans,” Ivan Simonovic, UN Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights, told ITAR-TASS. “This issue is under negotiation,” he added.

People forced to flee their homes in the continuing conflict now numbered “about 220,000”, Simonovic said, adding that he believed the figure was far higher.

“The trend is clear and alarming. There is a significant increase in the death toll in the east,” Simonovic told journalists as he presented a report by a UN monitoring mission.

“The current number of dead is 2,593 - close to 3,000 if we include the 298 victims of the MH17 (Malaysian airliner) plane crash,” he said.