An independent international commission investigating violations in Ukraine interviewed former Ukrainian prisoners of war released from the Volnovakha Correctional Colony No. 120, known as Olenivka, and recorded the lack of assistance provided to them by the Russian occupying administration after the explosion on July 29, 2022. This was stated by the head of the UN commission, Erik Møse, during his address at the 57th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.
“A worrying factor reported in many places of detention under Russian control is the lack of proper medical assistance to those who desperately need it. In one detention facility, even prison doctors participated in torture. One glaring illustration is the compelling testimonies of former inmates at the Volnovakha Correctional Colony, known as ‘Olenivka,’ in Ukraine, where an explosion on July 29, 2022, resulted in the deaths of many Ukrainian prisoners of war. According to their accounts, dozens of others who sustained life-threatening injuries did not receive immediate medical assistance,” Møse emphasized.
He noted that Ukrainian military doctors held in the colony were the only ones who attempted to provide first aid that night. “They reported helping their comrades in the dark without essential medical equipment, using the limited supplies left in their kits and sheets for bandages. They witnessed many people die that night, while the administration of the Olenivka colony stood by and watched,” he said.
The head of the UN Commission stressed that “the wide geography of torture locations and the prevalence of common patterns indicate that torture is a widespread and acceptable practice that Russian authorities apply with a sense of impunity.”
As reported, on the night of July 29, 2022, Russia committed a terrorist act by orchestrating an explosion in a barrack of the correctional colony in Olenivka, Donetsk region, where Ukrainian prisoners of war were held. At least 50 defenders of Azovstal were killed in that incident.
Ukraine managed to recover 23 soldiers who were in the destroyed barrack. One of them, 30-year-old combat medic Ostap Shved from Azov, testified about the circumstances of the largest massacre of Ukrainian defenders in Russian captivity.
Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets called on the United Nations to resume investigations into the murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war on the second anniversary of the Olenivka terrorist attack.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated on August 3, 2022, that the organization was preparing a group of experts to investigate the deaths of prisoners in Olenivka. Five months later, he dissolved the fact-finding mission regarding the strike on the colony in Olenivka due to a lack of security guarantees.
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