NGO Amnesty International claims the deportation and forced transfer of Ukrainian civilians in Russian-occupied territory amounts to war crimes and is prohibited by international humanitarian law.
In a new report published by Amnesty International on the war in Ukraine, this activity has been a regular procedure in the treatment of Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops.
Agnes Callamard, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International spoke to Euronews about the report’s findings.
“This report is about family tragedies. It’s about families being split apart, about children being split from their parents, about fathers having to be separated.
“It’s about wives losing their husbands. This report is about the forced transfer, forced deportation of Ukrainians into Russian-held territories, into Russia itself. A situation that, in our opinion, amounts to war crimes and a probable crime against humanity”, said Callamard.
The movement interviewed 88 Ukrainian civilians in their research.
It says that some of the interviewees were deported and forcibly transferred from Mariupol.
The NGO also found that at-risk groups were moved, such as unaccompanied children, the elderly or people with disabilities.
After deportation, Amnesty says many of these civilians had to go through lengthy invasive screening processes.
In some cases, these filtration processes involved intrusive interrogations, detention, torture or inhumane treatment, found Amnesty.
Click on the link above to watch the full interview.