The Council – the UN’s foremost human rights forum – also heard updates on allegations of ongoing abuses in Belarus, North Korea and Myanmar.
According to the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, enforced disappearances of civilians committed by Russian authorities have been “widespread and systematic” and likely amount to crimes against humanity.
“Many persons have been missing for months or years and some have died,” said Erik Mose, Chair of the independent investigative panel, whose Commissioners are not UN staff nor paid for their work.
“The fate and whereabouts of many remain unknown, leaving their families in agonizing uncertainty.”
Requests from families of missing persons to Russian authorities for information about their relatives are typically met with unhelpful replies, while one young man was “detained and beaten when he went to the authorities to enquire about his missing girlfriend”, the Commission noted.
As in previous presentations prepared for the Human Rights Council, the Commission’s latest report contains equally disturbing findings about the use of torture by Russian authorities, panel member Vrinda Grover told journalists in Geneva:
“A civilian woman who had been raped during confinement in a detention facility held by Russian authorities stated that she pleaded with the perpetrators, telling them she could be their mother's age, but they dismissed her saying,‘Bitch, don't even compare yourse...
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