Brussels - Capitals: Europe and the Arabs
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine entered its twentieth month, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine painted a bleak picture of the human rights situation in the country. According to a bulletin on the United Nations website. This came hours after European Foreign Policy Coordinator Josep Borrell visited Ukraine and made statements addressing the continuation of the brutal operations carried out by Russian forces against the Ukrainians.
The United Nations mission stated in a new report issued yesterday, Wednesday, that civilians in Ukraine are still paying a heavy price, as about 10,000 of them were killed and tens of thousands were injured.
Rocket attacks on residential areas and vital infrastructure continue to cause fear and spread devastation throughout Ukraine.
“Civilians in Russian-occupied areas face torture, ill-treatment, sexual violence, and arbitrary detention, and hundreds of them remain imprisoned, and their families do not know their fate,” according to the report.
Danielle Bell, head of the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said that the results of the report show the huge human losses among Ukrainian civilians.
During the six-month period covered by the report, the mission recorded - on average - the death of six people and the injury of twenty others, on a daily basis, while the total number of deaths reached more than a thousand civilians and the number of injured about four thousand people.
Millions fall into poverty
The war caused millions of Ukrainian civilians to fall below the poverty line. Their plight has been exacerbated by the widespread economic and social damage caused by attacks on critical infrastructure and agricultural facilities.
The destruction of the Khakovka Dam, earlier this year, caused major floods resulting in an environmental disaster that will have long-term negative impacts on the rights and well-being of people living in the area.
The UN report said that human rights monitors continued to document widespread torture and ill-treatment against civilians and prisoners of war at the hands of Russian authorities.
The report notes that Ukraine continues to grant human rights monitors unrestricted access to detained prisoners of war, noting that conditions have “improved” in a prisoner of war camp in Ukraine near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
While the report highlighted progress in some cases in areas controlled by Ukraine, it noted Ukraine's continued prosecution of thousands of individuals accused of collaborating with Russia in areas previously occupied by Russian armed forces.
The report also raised concern about the fate of Ukrainian children - some with physical and mental disabilities - who were transferred to locations within Russian-occupied areas or to Russia.
European Union Foreign and Security Policy Coordinator Josep Borrell said in his speech during the closing press conference of the EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Ukraine two days ago, “I personally - before our meeting - visited Odessa and Kiev, to meet with the Ukrainian people, to get to know their daily lives and discuss their lives and see with my own eyes the brutal nature.” And the inhumanity of Putin's aggression against this country.
Targeting churches, cultural heritage and ports that export food to hungry people around the world - this speaks volumes about the true face of Putin's so-called "special military operation" against the people of Ukraine, who are resisting staunchly. Incredible courage. A European statement in Brussels quoted Borrell's statements, which also stated that Russia is using hunger and energy as a weapon. Russia is doing so, expanding its crimes around the world, targeting the most vulnerable people in Africa and Asia, and depriving them of their food. This is the result of this marine blockage.
This is not our only requirement. This is also the perception of many, as we saw at the heart of the United Nations General Assembly two weeks ago.
Unfortunately, Russia seems intent on continuing its illegal actions, violating the rules-based international order, and putting global diplomacy to the test.
This means we have to work together more.