Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova this week singled out the call made by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk to investigate the bombing of a school dormitory in Russia’s Starobelsk, killing at least 21. The statement from Turk’s office said: “The UN Human Rights Office has conducted a thorough review of publicly available information, which indicates that the educational facilities were operational at the time of the attack and that civilians—many of them students—were killed or injured.” It added that 18 of the 21 were female students.
In a highly pressurized environment in the West to pretend the war crime did not occur, Lantratova found it “extremely important” that the tragedy was noticed and publicly condemned by one of the highest-ranking international officials in the field of human rights protection. “This is a fundamentally important signal.”
Previously, with organized silence on the matter, Moscow could only assume that not only Ukraine’s sponsors were 100% behind such a war crime, but also that international bodies would be cowed into looking the other way. Moscow has made it clear that such a situation is intolerable and that they are committed to hitting parts of Kiev’s decision-making sites that they have up to now given a pass.
Lantratova reported that she had traveled to Starobelsk immediately after the attack, publicly appealed to the international community, and sent official letters to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the president of the UN Human Rights Council, the chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and to the UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, urging them to assess the attack and support an objective investigation.
She also recognized and thanked the foreign journalists who actually visited Starobelsk in order to report on the tragedy, and then “were not afraid to tell the truth about what happened.” She expressed the hope that Turk’s simple statement might allow other international organizations and officials to overcome their silence.
