RFI in Bucha (Ukraine): ‘I saw children aged 4 and 10, burned alive with their mothers’

The images of the Bucha massacre have shocked the world and they have mobilized the international community to launch several investigations to determine that the Russian army may have committed war crimes in Ukraine. The special envoys of RFI They collected testimonies on the spot.

For Clea Broadhurst and Jad El Khoury

All the survivors of the Russian occupation of the city of Bucha have brutal memories. Near the mass grave of the church of St. Andrew, Oleg still can’t believe that he got out alive.

“I saw children of 4 and 10 years old, burned alive with their mothers”Oleg says. “How can you digest that? I saw my neighbor’s mangled body in front of me, he was missing a lung and the Russians wouldn’t let us take his body for a proper burial. When I close my eyes now, that’s all I see.” He says.

Under gray skies, with the wind whipping through the black bags containing the victims’ bodies, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova addressed Bucha. She has come to establish that in the small town, not far from kyiv, war crimes took place.

“Bucha bears the aftermath of all war crimes, from torture, from sexual abuse, from bombed-out infrastructure and civilian houses,” says Venediktova. “Like Borodyanka, it is a city without military structures, and there is nothing left. There is evidence of many war crimes in the kyiv region and we can call them crimes against humanity,” she adds.

The evidence is being collected by the citizens themselves, who have tools at their disposal to document war crimes, as explained by the Ukrainian deputy Lesia Vasylenko.

“There is an application for smartphones that allows you to report cases of torture, abuse, attacks on civilian targets such as schools or hospitals…. Now everyone has a smartphone, people can send their photos of a clinic bombed by the Russians during the war. How can the Russians claim that everything is made up when twenty people have photos of the same event, from different angles, of Russian troops attacking civilians?

“In the kyiv region, possible war crimes are seen around every corner”

International researchers have also arrived to carry out in-depth studies on the ground. This is the case of Belkis Wille, senior researcher in the Crisis and Conflict Division of Human Rights Watch.

“What is striking in some parts of the country is the scale of these abuses. In the kyiv area alone, you see potential war crimes on every corner, around every building, and it’s quite amazing,” says Belkis Wille. “The other thing that sets this conflict apart is that there have never been so many opportunities in the history to obtain evidence, within the judicial mechanisms. This is really unique.”

The Russian government insists that everything is fake and fabricated by kyiv. But damning evidence is piling up and Ukrainians hope it will be used in an international criminal court.

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The images of the Bucha massacre have shocked the world and they have mobilized the international community to launch several investigations to determine that the Russian army may have committed war crimes in Ukraine. The special envoys of RFI They collected testimonies on the spot.

For Clea Broadhurst and Jad El Khoury

All the survivors of the Russian occupation of the city of Bucha have brutal memories. Near the mass grave of the church of St. Andrew, Oleg still can’t believe that he got out alive.

“I saw children of 4 and 10 years old, burned alive with their mothers”Oleg says. “How can you digest that? I saw my neighbor’s mangled body in front of me, he was missing a lung and the Russians wouldn’t let us take his body for a proper burial. When I close my eyes now, that’s all I see.” He says.

Under gray skies, with the wind whipping through the black bags containing the victims’ bodies, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova addressed Bucha. She has come to establish that in the small town, not far from kyiv, war crimes took place.

“Bucha bears the aftermath of all war crimes, from torture, from sexual abuse, from bombed-out infrastructure and civilian houses,” says Venediktova. “Like Borodyanka, it is a city without military structures, and there is nothing left. There is evidence of many war crimes in the kyiv region and we can call them crimes against humanity,” she adds.

The evidence is being collected by the citizens themselves, who have tools at their disposal to document war crimes, as explained by the Ukrainian deputy Lesia Vasylenko.

“There is an application for smartphones that allows you to report cases of torture, abuse, attacks on civilian targets such as schools or hospitals…. Now everyone has a smartphone, people can send their photos of a clinic bombed by the Russians during the war. How can the Russians claim that everything is made up when twenty people have photos of the same event, from different angles, of Russian troops attacking civilians?

“In the kyiv region, possible war crimes are seen around every corner”

International researchers have also arrived to carry out in-depth studies on the ground. This is the case of Belkis Wille, senior researcher in the Crisis and Conflict Division of Human Rights Watch.

“What is striking in some parts of the country is the scale of these abuses. In the kyiv area alone, you see potential war crimes on every corner, around every building, and it’s quite amazing,” says Belkis Wille. “The other thing that sets this conflict apart is that there have never been so many opportunities in the history to obtain evidence, within the judicial mechanisms. This is really unique.”

The Russian government insists that everything is fake and fabricated by kyiv. But damning evidence is piling up and Ukrainians hope it will be used in an international criminal court.

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