02/04/2022 12:29

Commissioner: The killing of children is a crime against humanity and a war crime

As of 10 a.m. on April 2, 2022, according to the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations and other sources that need confirmation, 158 children (+5 per day) have died and 254 children (+9 per day) have been injured since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

It is impossible to establish the actual number of dead and wounded children due to the fact that the occupying forces are actively fighting in Ukrainian cities.

Yesterday, as a result of the russian shelling in Donetsk region, 7 people died, 6 people were injured, including three children.

The enemy fired on civilian cars on a highway in the Chernihiv region, killing 13 people, two of them children.

As a result of artillery shelling of the settlement in the Bashtansky region of the Nikolaev area the child is wounded.

To date, 869 educational institutions have been damaged by bombing and shelling.  83 of them were completely destroyed.  The worst situation is in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kyiv, Kherson, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv regions and the city of Kyiv.  In addition, more than 80 children's facilities were damaged, including hospitals, music schools, sports and rehabilitation facilities, youth centers, and libraries.

The actions of the Russian occupation forces violate the right of children to life, which is enshrined in Article 6 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.  The killing of children and the shelling of peaceful settlements are crimes against humanity and war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

I appeal to the UN Commission for Investigation Human Rights Violations during Russia's Military Invasion and the expert mission set up by the OSCE participating States under the Moscow Mechanism to take into account these facts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.