Diaspora

WFUWO is appalled at the actions of the ICRC in Ukraine

For more than a month, the Russian Federation has waged an unprovoked and brutal war of choice against Ukraine. As a military aggressor against a peaceful nation, Russia has broken the world’s trust, is in violation of international agreements to which Russia is a signatory, and has become a violent transgressor of borders and laws. There is no parity between the actions of Russia, which offensively inflicts mass destruction on Ukrainian people and land, and of Ukraine, defending her people and land.

The genuine horrors of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine are in the news daily: indiscriminate shelling of civilian infrastructure, including schools, maternity hospitals, buildings of shelter;  the use of vulnerable people as human shields; the unnecessary deaths and injuries to the most vulnerable who are unable to leave - the ill, the children and the elderly; arbitrary torture by Russian soldiers of civilians whom they have been mandated “to guard”; the dangerous and unstable occupation of two nuclear power plants that poses a grave security threat to the environment and to all the people of the world. 

Millions of Ukrainian citizens, more than 25% of the nation’s population have been displaced, having lost their homes and all possessions. Ukrainian cities experience catastrophe under Russian occupation with lack of food, water, heat. Emboldened by their impunity and with no restrictions from their leaders, Russian soldiers have begun to loot, rape, torture and murder, committing brutal crimes against humanity. As many as 144 children have been killed, 220 have sustained grave injuries. A massacre of innocent people is underway, the destruction of a nation, the fulfillment of the Russian president’s genocidal intent to wipe Ukraine and Ukrainians from the face of the earth.  

As the world’s leading democracies have stated support for Ukraine, have isolated and shamed the leadership of the Russian Federation and accused the Russian president of committing war crimes, Peter Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross is photographed shaking hands with Sergiy Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, who supports his country’s aggression and its genocidal actions.

Particularly disturbing is the news that the ICRC – which continues to refer to this brutal war as a “conflict in Ukraine” -- is considering opening an office in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don ostensibly to aid citizens in the eastern Ukrainian territories occupied by the Russian military. WFUWO fully agrees with the reaction released by the Human Rights Committee of Ukraine’s  parliament on 28 March 2022:

“The Committee strongly objects to the International Society of the Red Cross opening an office in Rostov-on-Don … this action will help legitimize the so-called “humanitarian corridors” on the territory of the Russian Federation, and will also become a form of support for the forced kidnapping of Ukrainian citizens and their trafficking to the territory of the aggressor state. According to the information available to the Committee, the Russian invaders have already forcibly deported several thousand Mariupol residents to Russia. The captured Mariupol residents have been taken to filtration camps, where the invaders check people’s phones and documents. After the inspection, some Mariupol residents were redirected to remote cities in Russia, while the fate of the others remains unknown. This is a violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and yet another war crime committed by Russia.”

WFUWO considers the intentions of the International Committee of the Red Cross to open a Red Cross office in Rostov-on-Don to be unacceptable. We call upon the leadership of the ICRC to change its decision. The ICRC should protect and assist the affected citizens of Ukraine, but not by siding with the aggressor state and contributing to the crimes of this war.

WFUWO calls on the ICRC to fulfill its mandate in relation to  international humanitarian law and help Ukrainians evacuate, provide services for the support of creating and identifying hospitals, safe zones and safe residential areas (article 14 of the Geneva Convention IV) and to present an initiative for the resolution of humanitarian problems in Ukraine.

Furthermore, nations and people of good will have contributed millions of dollars to the ICRC to help the people of Ukraine who have been displaced in Eastern Europe, internally displaced or continue to live under Russian occupation. For the ICRC to use any of these funds towards work in the Russian Federation is profoundly unethical. WFUWO joins with Transparency International Ukraine in calling for the cessation of donations to the ICRC if this is how the organization chooses, ostensibly, to aid Ukraine.

WFUWO calls for

- a review of the ICRC mandate of neutrality and its role as an unbiased mediator between all sides of war for the resolution of humanitarian problems; and

- the resignation of ICRC President Peter Maurer. 

After review, WFUWO reserves the right to demand from the international community and international organizations that the ICRC be prevented from working in Ukraine until the end of Russia’s war against Ukraine and that all donations given to the ICRC to aid the people of Ukraine be transferred to humanitarian organizations operating within Ukraine.

WFUWO

wfuwo.office@gmail.com

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Ontario M8Z 5X8 Canada

The World Federation of Ukrainian Women’s Organizations is an international umbrella founded in 1948 in Philadelphia, USA. WFUWO is an NGO affiliated with the United Nations Department of Global Communications (1990), accredited in consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (1993), and a member of the NGO Committee on UNICEF (1997). The WFUWO network currently represents and coordinates the work of 40 women’s organizations in 33 countries of the Ukrainian diaspora.