A year after the tragic killing of at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war at the penal colony at Olenivka, justice is still no closer to being served, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said.
"The prisoners of war who were injured or died at Olenivka, and their family members, deserve the truth to be known, and for those responsible for breaches of international law to be held accountable," he said.
The Russian Federation provided neither satisfactory assurances about secure access for the United Nations to visit the particular site, nor granted general requests by the UN Human Rights Office to access areas of Ukraine under the temporary military control of the Russian Federation.
While the precise circumstances of the terrorist attack on the night of July 28–29, 2022, remain unclear, Volker Türk claims that the information available enables the Office to conclude that it was not caused by a HIMARS rocket. It is not possible at this stage to establish either the specific source of the explosion, nor the exact direction from which a weapon may have been fired.
In January 2023, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, decided to disband the fact-finding mission into the Olenivka prison attack because the UN mission couldn’t deploy to the site.
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