Lyudmyla Denisova, Human Rights Commission of the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament: “Reconstruction is complicated: chaos and panic make it impossible to know the truth.” The number of “20 thousand” in Mariupol
Or one hundred and sixteen civilians killed, 58 minors. It is the United Nations that officially records the number of victims of the war in Ukraine. But once again, High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet wanted to stress that the death toll is likely much higher. On the other hand, according to the Kiev authorities, in the city of Mariupol alone, 1,300 people are still under the rubble and at least another 3,000 have been injured. Figures that do not correspond to the information provided by the city administration, which speaks of zero deaths and one seriously injured. 20,000 deaths were assumed for the entire city on Thursday. As part of this, 130 empty wheelchairs were set up yesterday on Rynok Square, the central square of Lviv. “They symbolize our children killed in the conflict,” stressed Lyudmyla Denisova of the Human Rights Commission of the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament.
Why are the civilian casualty figures so contradictory?
First of all, it must be said that the responsible UN agency, the United Nations Human Rights Office, Ohchr, is also checking information on 1,252 injured people. But not only. In many of the areas affected by the Russian raids, communications are being controlled or cut off. Therefore, it is very complicated to reconstruct exactly what happened. It is the fog of war, as analysts define it, which, thanks to chaos and panic, makes it impossible to see the truth.
If images of mass graves full of corpses and the rubble of civilian buildings hit by the raids suggest that Bachelet is unfortunately not wrong, then where is the truth?
The data is not always fully transmitted by hospitals and morgues, which are themselves under attack. It happened, for example, on February 28, when Russian troops began bombing the city of Kharkiv. Initial reports cited a Facebook message from Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, who spoke of “dozens of people” killed in Russian missile attacks. This figure has been re-released by dozens of international news outlets, although the tally of this attack has now been widely reported as 10 casualties. It happened and is happening in Mariupol. In order to obtain realistic data, one then has to turn to third parties.
How does the United Nations count the dead?
The Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (Hrmmu) has been active since 2014. Since February 24, most of the staff is now on duty and cannot visit the sites of the incidents and interrogate victims and witnesses. That means using other sources of information, including local contacts and partners. According to the principle that this count must be done because the victims’ data is not just a collection of abstract numbers, but represents individual people. Counting them is crucial to then taking responsibility and giving dignity to each of the victims.
How did these people die?
Most of the recorded civilian deaths were caused by the use of explosive weapons in a large impact area, including heavy artillery shelling and multi-launch missile systems, missiles and airstrikes. The Russian attacks are documented by an almost never-ending stream of images that describe the increasing cost in human lives and which is also characterized by the nature of the target chosen: an airstrike on a maternity ward; cluster bombs on a kindergarten; and a ditch full of corpses that becomes one of the first mass graves. Images that go down in history. And that they will also help the international courts to find out the truth about these war crimes.
At what point are the proceedings before the international courts?
Ukraine has launched 1,833 criminal cases to investigate crimes committed by the Russian military in the country. And he says he has already collected two thousand complaints. In an exclusive interview with CNN, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said he left for Ukraine because he had reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes were committed in the Russian attack. This came after Moscow rejected The Hague’s request to halt military operations.
March 19, 2022 (Change March 19, 2022 | 09:56)
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