Ukrainian cities have been hit by airstrikes and heavy shelling in Russia’s five-week invasion, killing civilians and destroying hospitals in what could amount to war crimes, the top UN human rights official said.
Michelle Bachelet called on Russia to withdraw its troops at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
She also said her office had received “credible allegations” that Russian forces had used cluster munitions in populated areas of Ukraine at least 24 times.
“Homes and administrative buildings, hospitals and schools, water stations and electricity systems have not been spared,” she said.
Russia has denied targeting civilians as part of a “special operation” to disarm and “denazify” its neighbor.
Bachelet said her office, which deploys nearly 60 UN human rights monitors in Ukraine, has verified 77 incidents of damage to medical facilities, including 50 hospitals.
“Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law and may constitute war crimes,” she said.
“The massive destruction of civilian objects and the high number of civilian casualties strongly indicate that the basic principles of discrimination, proportionality and precaution were not sufficiently observed,” Bachelet said, referring to the rules of war enshrined in the Geneva Conventions.
The people of Ukraine have experienced a “living nightmare,” she said, adding, “In the besieged city of Mariupol, people are living in sheer terror.”
Matilda Bogner, head of the UN human rights mission in Ukraine, told Reuters in Geneva on Tuesday that thousands of people may have died during the months-long siege of Mariupol, a southern port city of 400,000 people.