‘Welcome to Hell’: #UN Panel Says Russian #WarCrimes Are Widespread
In a report headed to the #HumanRights Council in #Geneva next week, an investigative commission outlines the ongoing torture & starvation of Ukrainian prisoners.
2 yrs after #Russia’s full-scale invasion of #Ukraine, #UN investigators say they uncovered new evidence of systematic & widespread #torture of Ukrainian prisoners held by Russian security forces.
A UN Commission of Inquiry on Fri detailed a range of what it described as Russian #WarCrimes, incl’g summary #executions, #SexualViolence & forced transfer of Ukrainian #children into Russia. The commission paid special attn to “horrific” treatment of Ukrainian prisoners….
The commission will deliver a report to the #HumanRights Council in Geneva next week, detailing accounts of torture from 4 locations in #Russia & 7 in occupied #Ukraine, strengthening previous findings that the use of #torture had become widespread & systematic.
“We are concerned at the scale, continuation & gravity of violations & #crimes that the commission has investigated & the impact on victims,“ Erik Mose, chairman of the 3-person panel, said in a stmnt.
Russian guards told 1 prisoner “welcome to hell” the commission described brutal admissions procedures that included beatings & electric shocks. Torture carried out “everywhere”:in cells, corridors,courtyards & the bathhouse.
“I lost any hope & will to live” a prisoner told the panel he begged his inquisitors to kill him after beatings that broke a collarbone, knocked out teeth & left him w/a gangrenous foot unable to stand. After release…the prisoner had undergone 36 hospitalizations as of Jan.