"Shame on you": Families of captured Ukrainian marines hold protest near Red Cross office in Ukraine

The families of captured Ukrainian marines have held a protest next to the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Ukraine.

The protest was held in the city of Kyiv on the Day of Remembrance of the Fallen Defenders of Ukraine, 29 August.

Source: Media Initiative for Human Rights

"Today, on the Day of Remembrance of the Fallen Defenders of Ukraine, the families of the marines gathered in a protest to remind the public not only about the fallen [defenders] but also those soldiers and civilians who remain in Russian captivity or missing.

They want the representatives of the ICRC to explain why most families have no information about the location and state of their family members," the organisation said.

The Media Initiative noted that the International Committee of the Red Cross is the only organisation with a mandate on visiting detention centres for prisoners of war but they are only allowed to do it with permission from the administration of the prison, detention centre or penitentiary.

Russia hardly lets representatives of the ICRC into their detention centres, trying to hide its crimes from the world.

The Media Initiative for Human Rights urged the public to join such actions and support the families in their fight.

"What happened today next to the Kyiv office of the International Committee of the Red Cross is a sentence for the whole system of international law and international organisations. Desperate families of PoWs, almost ready to set themselves on fire, basically storm the ICRC. And this is only the beginning.

For years the ICRC, UN, OSCE, diplomatic missions and offices have been scratching their heads, throwing mandates at each other and just watching thousands of Ukrainians slowly die in captivity," Olha Reshetylova, a member of the organisation, said.

She stressed that Russia’s impunity is allowed by the international community which "keeps pretending that the Geneva Conventions are being upheld".

Background: Dmytro Lubinets, Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that not a single Ukrainian soldier liberated from Russian captivity had met with representatives of the ICRC.

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