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Ukraine missile strikes, summary executions expose international law’s importance!

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed his shock over unabated human suffering as Russian missile and drone strikes against critical infrastructure continue on a broad scale. ‘Millions are being plunged into extreme hardship and appalling conditions of life by these strikes’, he said. On Wednesday further missile strikes in the city and region of Kyiv killed at least eight civilians, counting one girl, and injured some 45 others, including seven children.

HRMMU has verified at least 77 civilian deaths and 272 injured since Russia began its barrage of missile strikes across Ukraine on Oct. 10. A two-day old baby boy was killed, and two doctors injured by a rocket strike on a hospital in Vilniansk, in the Zaporizhzhia region. ‘summary executions by both parties of prisoners of war and others no longer participating in the fighting’ constitutes a war crime, HRMMU’s Timur Türk reminded.

The UN Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has conducted a preliminary analysis of videos that have surfaced on social media which appear to show the deaths of some 12 Russian soldiers. The actual circumstances of the full sequence of events must be investigated ‘to the fullest extent possible, and those found responsible appropriately held to account’, says Peter Bouckaert, a senior UN official.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has called on the warring parties to refrain from reprisals against any prisoners of war. ‘The rules governing armed conflict set out in the Geneva Conventions demand this,’ he stressed. He flagged the devastating impacts of missile strikes by Russian forces and allegations of summary executions of prisoners during the Syrian conflict.

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