29/04/2022 10:30

Commissioner: the occupiers caused an emergency humanitarian situation in the village of Vilcha in Kharkiv region

In the village of Vilcha, Vovchansky district, Kharkiv region, where about 2,000 people live, including IDPs, the russian occupation has created an emergency humanitarian situation: the villagers need food, medicine and hygiene.

Today there is no receipt of pensions through post offices, it is impossible to withdraw funds from bank cards, there is no electricity and water supply, there is no mobile connection, internet.

 In the village of Vilcha there is a boarding house for the elderly, most of whose wards cannot move independently.  Due to the lack of electricity, the staff prepares food in the yard.  No hot or cold water.

The entire Vovchansky district is cut off from Ukraine along the Seversky Donets River: bridges and a dam on the Pecheneg Reservoir have been blown up.

 The occupiers are repressing the population: they are forcibly taking away members of the anti-terrorist operation, Ukrainian police officers, hunters whose weapons are being confiscated, and cars and equipment from entrepreneurs and farmers.

 Terror, cruel and degrading treatment of civilians in the occupied territories is a war crime under the Statute of the International Military Tribunal and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and a violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

 I appeal to the UN Commission for Investigation Human Rights Violations during the Russian Military Invasion of Ukraine to take into account these facts of Russian war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine.