Russia’s claimed annexation of Ukraine territory will only exacerbate human rights violations, the UN rights office has said as it outlined the “unspeakable suffering and devastation” inflicted on Ukrainians.
Christian Salazar Volkmann, presenting a report on rights in Ukraine to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, said UN experts had documented “a range of violations of the rights to life, liberty and security”.
“The Russian Federation’s wide-scale armed attack has resulted in a dire human rights situation across Ukraine,” the UN rights office’s field operations chief said.
The office’s Human Rights Monitoring Mission, which has been present in Ukraine since 2014, had documented more than 6,000 civilian deaths since Russia’s invasion on February 24, stressing that “the real figures are likely considerably higher.”
And he warned that the situation would only worsen as Russia pushes forward with annexing the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, following hastily arranged referendums dismissed as a “sham” by the West.
“With the purported annexation… the Russian Federation has taken steps which deepen rather than resolve the conflict, and exacerbate the human rights violations associated with it,” Salazar Volkmann said.__Al Jazeera
