GENEVA – Russia’s war in Ukraine has made severe rights violations “shockingly routine”, and is distracting humanity from battling existential threats to its survival, the United Nations’ rights chief warned on Friday.
Speaking before the UN Human Rights Council, Mr Volker Turk denounced horrific abuses carried out since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine 13 months ago, and warned that the conflict “continues to send shockwaves across the world”.
Mr Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, pointed to how sharp increases in the prices of food, energy and other commodities have “heightened tensions and inequalities in every region”.
This, he warned, is exacerbating “the most severe global cost-of-living crisis in a generation” that has pushed some 71 million into poverty, and “threatens the stability of numerous countries”.
At the same time, 37 years after the Chernobyl disaster, “another Ukrainian nuclear power plant, in Zaporizhzhia, continues to be placed at enormous risk, with potential impact on millions of people”.
“At a time when humanity faces overwhelming existential challenges, this destructive war is tugging us away from the work of building solutions, the work of ensuring our survival,” Mr Turk said.
“This war defies any reason. This madness must end, and peace be found,” he added.
In his update to the council on the situation inside Ukraine, Mr Turk said his office has verified more than 8,400 civilian deaths and over 14,000 civilians wounded since the Russian invasion on Feb 24, 2022.
“These figures are just the tip of the iceberg,” he cautioned.
Most of the casualties, he said, resulted from Russian forces using wide-impact explosive weapons in residential neighbourhoods.
He also highlighted findings by a UN investigative team of “numerous summary executions and targeted attacks on civilians” by Russian forces and affiliated armed groups like the Wagner Group, as well as “621 cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention”.
Ukrainian armed forces have also carried out summary executions, according to those findings.
The UN chief also highlighted findings that Ukrainian civilians, and in particular children, have been transferred to occupied territory or to Russia.
According to Kyiv, more than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia as at February.
The International Criminal Court has announced an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on the war crime accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
A high-level UN Commission of Inquiry has, meanwhile, determined such forced transfers amount to war crimes, and said earlier this month they were also probing allegations they could amount to genocide. AFP
