The funeral services of the city of Buchaclose to kyiv and recently liberated by the Ukrainian Army, they have located and buried some 340 bodies of civilians found in its streets, reports the Ukrainian newspaper Pravda. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said Monday that she was “appalled” by the images.
(Read: ‘There are crimes that humanity cannot let go without consequences’)
The kyiv authorities denounced the massacre committed by the Russian army in that city in the north of the countrywhich was besieged and bombed for weeks and in which, when it was recovered by the country’s troops, hundreds of bodies were found in its streets, most of them civilians.
We collected 15 bodies from Yablunska Street whose hands had been tied and who had been shot in the head. Today, April 3, we found 30 bodies.
According to the newspaper Pravdawhich cites sources from the funeral services of this suburb of Kiev, “in total between 330 and 340 bodies have been found in Bucha, but there are more,” he said.
According to Serhiy, another employee of the Bucha funeral service who is also quoted by the local newspaper, the workers are overwhelmed and cannot continue with these tasks of recovering bodies.
“We have to visit at least 20 more addresses. Many people are buried in yards and plots. We cannot say the exact number. We don’t have complete lists yet. We have already buried around 350 people,” she insisted.
The mayor of kyiv, Vitali Klitschkó, indicated this Sunday that dead civilians found on the streets of Bucha “had their hands tied behind their backs”as can be seen in the photographs broadcast by international media.
The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenski, described what Russia is doing last night on US television as “genocide” against the Ukrainian people.
And the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) claimed to have indications that the Russian Army had committed possible war crimes in the areas under its control, including summary executions of civilians.
International community calls for tougher sanctions
The international community is considering increasing sanctions against Russia for the alleged massacre committed by its troops in the town of Bucha, near kyiv, an implication that the Kremlin has categorically rejected.
The European Union is going to prepare “urgently” new sanctions against Russia after the “atrocities”, which it condemns in the “strongest terms” committed by the Russian armed forces in several Ukrainian cities that were occupied and have now been liberated.
The Twenty-seven stand in solidarity with Ukraine, a country that they will continue to support “firmly”, while preparing new sanctions and helping to collect evidence so that those responsible for the “massacres” are brought to international justice, said the head of European diplomacy , Josep Borrell, who referred to the “disturbing images” of civilian deaths in Bucha and other towns.
The EU “fully” supports the investigation launched by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court into war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as the work of the Commission of Inquiry of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights .
And the French president, Emmanuel Macron describes what happened in Bucha as “war crimes” and proposes an embargo on oil and Russian coal, for which it is going to seek a European agreement in the coming days.
The German Defense Minister, Christine Lambrecht, considers that the European Union should consider the ban on importing Russian gas after the massacre against civilians discovered after the withdrawal of Russian troops in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.
There must be a reaction. Crimes like this should not go unanswered and that should also be clear to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin
Neighboring Moldova has declared Monday a “national day of mourning” in memory of the victims of what the country’s president, Maia Sandu, has called “crimes against humanity” committed by Russia in Ukraine.
“We are horrified by the images that have appeared of the (Ukrainian) cities of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel with hundreds of civilians killed,” Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita wrote on her Facebook account on Monday.
Russia denies war crimes
Our diplomats will continue their active efforts to get the issue on the Security Council agenda.
The Kremlin categorically rejected Western accusations about the alleged massacre committed by Russian troops in the town of Bucha, near kyiv. “We categorically reject all accusations,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov said at his daily press conference.
Peskov added that Moscow calls for discussion of the issue “at the highest level” and that is why it had requested a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. According to the Russian Foreign Department, the UK vetoed the Russian request to convene an urgent meeting of the Security Council.
In this regard, he asked international leaders “not to rush with condemnatory statements” and “request information from various sources.” “And that, at a minimum, they listen to our argument,” she stressed.
The Russian Ministry of Defense assured this Sunday that the images published by the Ukrainian government did not correspond to reality. “We want to especially note that all Russian units completely abandoned Bucha on March 30, the day after the round of face-to-face talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey,” Defense said.
Russia maintains that it was on March 31 that the mayor of Bucha confirmed in a video message that there were no longer any Russian soldiers in the city, “but he never mentioned that local residents were shot in the streets with their hands tied.”
The images of the massacre
In the makeshift mass graves or in the middle of the streets, dead bodies are everywhere in the Ukrainian city of Buchanorthwest of kyiv, where residents continue to mourn their dead after the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian leaders should be held responsible for “murder” and “torture” in Bucha, where the grisly discoveries have sparked outrage in Europe and the United States.
Liuba, 62, leads a neighbor into a sodden trench behind a gilt-domed church. He doesn’t have the strength to see if his brother is lying there, as some rumors have indicated.
Some 57 people have been shallowly buried in this mass grave, a city employee told an AFP journalist. But only part of them are visible. Some are in body bags.
Others, wearing civilian attire, have been partially buried. One sees emerging from the earth, in strange positions, a pale hand, a foot wearing a boot, exposed to the snowflakes that fall on this town on the outskirts of the capital. A corpse is surrounded by a red and white sheet, near a single pink women’s sandal.
Liuba’s neighbor backs away, and then collapses. He can’t get any closer to the pit. “These wounds will never heal,” Liuba fears. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, not even my worst enemy.”
The call of the international community
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said Monday that she was “horrified” by the images of bodies discovered in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, after the withdrawal of Russian troops.
“The information that is coming out of this area and others raises serious and worrying questions about possible war crimes and serious violations of international humanitarian law as well as serious violations of human rights,” Michelle Bachelet stressed in a statement, also asking that “preserve all evidence.”
In addition to the identification of the bodies to be able to notify the relatives, Bachelet asked that everything be put in place to be able to determine the causes of death. Corpses of civilians in Bucha, strewn in the streets, some with their hands tied behind their backs, prompted a wave of convictions.
“It is vital to carry out an independent and effective investigation” into what happened in Bucha so that justice and reparation can be done for the victims and their families, stressed the former president of Chile.
The president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, condemned the “massacre” in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, where hundreds of bodies were discovered after the withdrawal of the Russian army, and defined it as “another intolerable violation of human rights”.
This was communicated by the Presidency of the Republic in a statement last night, where he recalled that “this is, in fact, the Portuguese position, also expressed by the Prime Minister”, Antonio Costa.
“We vehemently condemn these atrocities against civilians,” he said in the publication. They add to the numerous international condemnations that have caused the images of hundreds of corpses of civilian victims of summary executions in Bucha, a city of 35,000 inhabitants located northwest of the Ukrainian capital that was besieged and bombed for weeks.
The brutality of the images from Bucha is shocking. We strongly condemn these atrocities against civilians. This unacceptable cruelty must be severely punished by international justice. #BuchaMassacre
— António Costa (@antoniocostapm) April 3, 2022
Japan’s foreign minister said on Monday he was “deeply shocked by reports that exceptionally cruel acts of violence against civilians have taken place near kyiv.”
“The killing of innocent civilians is a violation of humanitarian law and is unacceptable, and I strongly condemn such actions,” Yoshimasa Hayashi said during a visit to Warsaw.
The Swiss Government today called for an international and independent investigation into the alleged massacre committed by Russian troops in the town of Bucha, on the outskirts of kyiv.
The information received about the events in Bucha “raise fears of serious violations of international humanitarian law” that urgently require an independent investigation, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The official note added that Switzerland supports the investigations of the International Criminal Court and other institutions into possible human rights violations in the war in Ukraine, and called on the parties to the conflict to respect the civilian population.
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