UN finds Russia guilty of killing children in Ukraine
The United Nations has put Russian military forces and proxy armed groups on its "list of shame" for violations of children's rights during the Russian aggression in Ukraine.
As reported by RadioFreeEurop/RadioLiberty, this is stated in the annual report on children and armed conflict.
According to the report circulated among the members of the Security Council on June 22, Russian military personnel and affiliated military groups were involved in at least 136 cases of child deaths. The report itself aims to condemn countries involved in wars and to raise awareness of the importance of protecting children during armed conflicts.
"I am particularly shocked by the high number of attacks on schools and hospitals and protected personnel, and by the high number of children killed and maimed attributed to the Russian forces and affiliated armed groups," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in the report.
The report also highlights the total number of children affected by Russian attacks – 518 children maimed, 136 children killed, 91 used as human shields, and 91 abducted by Russian troops.
The document also underlines that the published data is not final since it apparently does not include a large number of unreported cases that cannot be verified due to the hostilities.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, as of June 1, 2023, 484 children were killed by Russian troops and more than 992 received injuries of various severity. 19.4 thousand Ukrainian children were deported to the territory of the aggressor country.
To recap, according to the World Health Organization's report, published at the end of last month, the Russian military has carried out more than 1,000 attacks on Ukrainian medical facilities over the 15 months of full-scale war.
Also, in May, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released new data on civilian casualties caused by the war with Russia. According to the document, 8,836 civilians were killed and almost 15,000 people were injured.