Ukraine: Izium Apartment Victims Need Justice
(Kyiv, March 22, 2023) – Russian forces used a large air-delivered munition on an apartment building on March 9, 2022, in Izium, eastern Ukraine, in an attack that killed at least 44 civilians and violated the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said today in a web report.
The report, “A Thousand Explosions in My Ears,” uses survivor testimony, photos, videos, and 3D modeling of the building at 2 Pershotravneva Street to show the devastating effects of the attack – one of the single deadliest for civilians since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Dozens of civilians were sheltering in the basement, and while the building was close to the front lines, Human Rights Watch found no evidence that Ukrainian forces were using the building for military purposes at the time.
“Generations of families in the basement were entombed by this single attack,” said Richard Weir, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “We found no evidence to justify treating the apartment building as a legitimate military target, or that Russian forces tried to avoid or minimize the destruction of so many civilian lives.”
Source:: Human Rights Watch
