25/04/2022 11:11

Rashists in Luhansk region practically destroyed all health care facilities

The troops of the aggressor country of the Russian Federation purposefully destroy the medical infrastructure and aim at the ambulances during the shelling.

Since the start of the full-scale war, the russian military has destroyed 347 health facilities, 36 of which cannot be rebuilt.  In Luhansk oblast, all medical institutions and hospitals are damaged or destroyed.  This situation threatens the lives of thousands of people in the occupied cities.

The World Health Organization has stated that the health care system in eastern Ukraine has been virtually destroyed.  The WHO has confirmed 162 attacks on medical facilities and personnel, killing at least 73 people.

According to WHO surveys, the health care situation in Ukraine is becoming more complicated.  The risk of infectious diseases, as well as the growing prevalence of water-borne diseases, is significant.

Access to reproductive, maternal and antenatal care, as well as mental health, is severely restricted due to security concerns, limited mobility, supply chain disruptions and mass displacement.

The occupiers did not allow the WHO to travel to Mariupol and other besieged areas for at least two days to assess the needs of the health care system and provide vital medical services to the sick and wounded.

Russia violates the right of Ukrainians to life medical care guaranteed by the Hague and Geneva Conventions.  Such actions pose a direct threat to the life and health of civilians, contrary to the provisions of Article 51 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, which explicitly prohibits attacks on civilians and civilian objects.

According to Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, acts of large-scale or systematic attack on any civilian person, if such an attack is carried out knowingly and involves murder, destruction, deportation or forcible transfer, are crimes against humanity.

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 crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine.