U.N. documents torture of prisoners by warring sides

KYIV, Ukraine — Prisoners taken by the warring parties in the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine have endured systematic torture, sexual violence and other abuses, the United Nations human rights agency says in a new report.

The report issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said prisoners’ abuse was particularly rampant in the initial stage of the sevenyear conflict, but that it continues to this day.

“Seven years since the outbreak of the conflict, it is unacceptable that such egregious human rights violation remain largely unaddressed,” said Matilda Bogner, Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. “The prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is absolute. Torture can never be justified.”

The conflict in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland erupted in April 2014 weeks after Russia’s annexation of

Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula that followed the ouster of the country’s former Moscowleaning president. Russiabacked separatists took control of large areas in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and fought government forces attempting to reclaim control. More than 14,000 people have been killed. The OHCHR estimated the total number of conflictrelated detentions from April 14, 2014, until April 30, 2021, at 7,9008,700, including 3,6004,000 by the government side and 4,3004,700 by separatists.

It found that both sides used secret detention facilities immune from any prosecutorial oversight or access by rights monitors. The government side stopped using them in 2017 but the separatists continue to hold prisoners incommunicado, denying access to their relatives and monitors, the OHCHR said. The OHCHR analyzed more than 1,300 individual cases of conflictrelated detention. It said that in cases that occurred only between 20142015, 74% of detainees held by government forces and 82.2% to 85.7% of those held by the rebels in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions respectively were frequently subjected to torture and illtreatment.

It estimated the total number of conflictrelated detainees subjected to torture and illtreatment in 20142021 at around 4,0001,500 at the hands of government agents and about 2,500 by separatists. They included an estimated 340 victims of sexual violence.