16/03/2022 14:53

Russian terrorists are massively abducting civilians in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine

Yesterday, the armed russian military kidnapped activist Vitaliy Shevchenko for organizing a rally in Berdyansk after a protest.  Several other activists were also detained.

In the town of Bucha in the Kyiv region, the occupiers broke into the city council and took away 5 employees in an unknown direction, among them Dmytro Gapchenko, the manager of the Bucha city council.  Russian terrorists confiscated and discarded their passports, and people under the barrels of machine guns were twisted and taken out of the council building.  The workers were later released.

In the Kherson region, racist militants abducted Skadovsk Mayor Oleksandr Yakovlev and his deputy Yuri Palyukh. Mayor was released later.

In the city of Mariupol, russian criminals continue to detain staff and patients, as well as residents of surrounding houses - 400 people in the basement of the Regional Hospital for Intensive Care.  Militias set up firing points on the floors of the institution, people are used as a "living shield" from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The taking of civilian hostages is a direct violation of Articles 3 and 34 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

I call on the international community to use all means of sanctions against the terrorist state of the Russian Federation to stop the military invasion of Ukraine and the immediate return of all civilian and military hostages.