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My Office continues to undertake extensive monitoring and documentation by our Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), based on the rigorous, and tried and tested, methodology we have developed over decades. This documentation continues to indicate gross violations of international human rights law, serious violations of international humanitarian law, and war crimes, primarily by the forces of the Russian Federation.
They include 142 cases of summary execution of civilians since February 2022, in territory controlled by Russian armed forces or occupied by the Russian Federation.
On occupied territory, we have documented widespread torture and ill-treatment of detainees, including sexual violence, as well as large numbers of enforced disappearances.
The Russian Federation has not permitted us to access any of its places of detention in these territories, impeding a complete count of these cases. But among the victims of arbitrary detention, incommunicado detention and enforced disappearance documented by my Office since 24 February 2022, at least one hundred civilians died after having been taken into detention by Russian authorities.
At least 39 of them appeared to have been tortured before their death: practices of torture and other cruel treatment have been widespread in places of detention in Russian-occupied territories. Many cases of torture that we have documented include sexual violence.
There must be timely and effective investigations into all allegations of violations, with due prosecution of and accountability for alleged perpetrators, including those with command responsibility. Victims have the rights to remedy, reparation and support.
The targeting of civilian infrastructure, including facilities related to grain production and export; and the practices of arbitrary detention and torture must cease immediately.
Delivered by Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at Human Rights Council interactive dialogue on the findings of OHCHR’s report on the situation of human rights in Ukraine
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