MPs, Ukrainians call for Parliament’s genocide committee to probe Russian atrocities

OTTAWA

Atrocities emerging in Ukraine, following the withdrawal of Russian troops from around the capital Kyiv, have prompted calls for an urgent inquiry by a Canadian parliamentary committee on genocide.

MPs and Ukrainian, Jewish and Armenian groups want the parliamentary committee to probe the discovery of civilian bodies in Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv.

The calls came as the RCMP launched a national investigation into allegations of war crimes in Ukraine.

Liberal MP Ali Ehsassi believes the discovery of mass graves and corpses of civilians in areas Russia has withdrawn from must be urgently investigated in Canada’s Parliament to establish whether Putin’s troops committed genocide.

Ehsassi called for the all-party parliamentary group on the prevention of genocide, which stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic, to be re-established with funding to help it carry out an inquiry.

He said the evidence — including from drone footage — suggested that the civilian killings were “absolutely systematic” and not the work “of a few soldiers” going rogue.

At a virtual news conference on Friday, Ukrainian human rights experts and a Ukrainian MP presented graphic photographs of people in civilian clothes killed in Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel and other areas which were once occupied by Russian armed forces.

The photographs showed dead bodies, including of one person lying face-down with their hands tied behind their back, and of drivers, who had apparently been fleeing from Russian troops, dead at the wheels of their cars.

They also showed women and men’s bodies lying in the streets, including the corpse of a man lying by the side of the road with a dog sitting beside him.

Ukrainian MP Oleksandra Ustinova said the intention of the Russians was to “erase us,” adding that children had also been “stolen from Ukraine and sent to Russia.”

“This is not about the war any more. This is about genocide,” she said.