children from Mariupol. March 28. By Carol Guzy
Evacuation of children from Mariupol on March 28, 2022. Photo By Carol Guzy (war.ukraine.ua)
Kyiv/Geneva/Warsaw/Tokyo/Helsinki/Moscow/Beijing: Ukraine today claimed that in the Kyiv region, Russian occupiers had raped children. “The victims are a 14-year-old girl, an 11-year-old boy, and a 20-year-old girl,” Ludmila Denisova, Ukrainian Ombudsman, stated.
Russian invaders also raped a pregnant 16-year-old girl and a 78-year-old grandmother in the Kherson region, the head of the military administration of Kryvyi Rih, Oleksandr Vilkul, claimed.
Ukraine’s Commissioner for Human Rights Lyudmila Denisova claimed that since the war started, Russian occupiers had forcibly removed 121,000 children from the occupied Ukrainian territories.
Moreover, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine informed today that the Russian military fired at a boat carrying 14 people, killing one child and injuring two others aged 4 and 16 in the Dnipropetrovsk region on April 7, 2022.
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights stated in Geneva today that as of today, among a total of 1,626 killed were 63 children and out of a total of 2,267 injured, were 108 children.
The Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office claimed that the Russian soldiers tortured three local residents in the village of Husarovka, Izyum district, Kharkiv region, and then set their bodies on fire.
The Head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration Pavel Kirilenko today said that Russian rocket fire on evacuation trains at Kramatorsk train station killed at least 39 civilians. 300 victims were injured. “Russian troops deliberately shelled the train station with cluster munitions in order to take city residents hostage and disrupt evacuations,” Kirilenko said.
Meanwhile, Finland today expelled two Russian diplomats and denied visa to one Russian diplomat due to Russian aggression in Ukraine, while Japan expelled eight Russian diplomats and trade mission workers.
In Warsaw, the lower house of the Polish parliament demanded the creation of an international commission to investigate the crimes of Russian genocide in Ukraine, condemn the criminals, and suspend Russia’s membership in all international organizations.
In Moscow, Krzysztof Krajewski, the Polish Ambassador to Russia, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry where Russia lodged a “resolute protest” in connection with the March 23, 2022 decision to declare 45 officials of Russian diplomatic missions in Poland personae non grata.
The Russian side told the Ambassador that it saw this step as confirmation of Warsaw’s deliberate efforts to completely destroy bilateral relations. Responsibility for this rests entirely with the Polish side.
“As a retaliatory measure following Poland’s unfriendly move to expel Russian diplomats and under the principle of reciprocity, 45 officials from the Embassy of the Republic of Poland and its consulates-general in Irkutsk, Kaliningrad and St Petersburg have been declared personae non grata. They will have to leave the territory of the Russian Federation by midnight April 13. The relevant note was presented to the Ambassador of Poland to Russia,” the Russian foreign office stated.
Ukraine’s Minister of Culture and Information Policy, Oleksandr Tkachenko, informed that 46 countries had announced a boycott of the session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to be held in Russia.
China’s concerns
Meanwhile, after the United Nations General Assembly suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council yesterday, China today claimed that the relevant resolution in this regard was not drafted in an open and transparent manner, nor did it follow the tradition of holding consultations within the whole membership to heed the broadest opinions.
“Such a move will only aggravate the division among member states and intensify the contradictions between the parties concerned. It is like adding fuel to the fire, which is not conducive to the de-escalation of conflicts, and even less so to advancing the peace talks. Dealing with the membership of the Human Rights Council in such a way would set a new and dangerous precedent, further intensify confrontations, bring a greater impact on the UN governance system, and produce serious consequences,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing today. He said since the resolution would strip Russia of its legal membership in the Human Rights Council, “such a serious matter must be handled with extreme caution and in a calm, objective and rational approach based on facts and truth”.
– global bihari bureau
