War in Ukraine: rapes, executions... Human Rights Watch claims to have documented Russian "war crimes"

Chilling stories, sordid attacks… This Sunday, the organization Human Rights Watch claimed to have intersected a dozen testimonies of rapes and summary executions constituting “war crimes” during the Russian occupation in several cities in Ukraine.

"Human Rights Watch has documented several incidents of violations of the laws of war by Russian military forces against civilians in the occupied areas of Chernihiv, Kharkiv and kyiv," the human rights NGO said. the man.

This report details a dozen cross-checked, dated and contextualized testimonies of “repeated rapes”, “summary executions” and “illegal violence targeting civilians between February 27 and March 14, 2022”.

Human Rights Watch calls for an international investigation into "war crimes".

The publication of this document occurs that more than 20 corpses were discovered in the middle of the street in the town of Boutcha.

A massacre that provoked strong international reactions this Sunday.

The dead, mostly men, were found occasionally strewn on the ground after Russian troops withdrew from this town of around 30,000 people, 30 km from kyiv.

Repeated rapes

Among the testimonies relayed by Human Watch, some of them recount summary executions in Boutcha, while bodies were found with their hands tied, seeming to confirm these statements: “On March 4, the Russian forces being in Boucha (…) apprehended five men and summarily executed one of them”.

Other abuses are documented, in the Kharkiv region in particular.

“A woman told Human Rights Watch that a Russian soldier repeatedly raped her at a school where she and her family had taken refuge on March 13.

She claimed to have been beaten, and slashed in the face and neck with a knife, “says the NGO, which was able to observe photos of the lesions.

“The cases we have documented demonstrate unspeakable and deliberate cruelty and violence against Ukrainian civilians,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, as the France, the European Union and Germany have called for accountability for the Boutcha deaths.