He General secretary The United Nations decided on Thursday to dismantle the investigative mission into the incident on July 29 in which 50 prisoners died in the prison in the Ukrainian municipality of Olenivka.
At a press conference, Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for António Guterres, announced that the dissolution of the investigation team was due “to the lack of the conditions required for its deployment at the scene of the events.”
Questioned by the press, Dujarric indicated that the main reason for the closure was due “to [la falta de] security guarantees, we have the political agreement, but for such a complicated and dangerous scenario in a war zone, we require guarantees of security and access from both parties and we do not receive them”.
Despite this cancellation, the spokesperson stressed that the UN hopes to soon have “the necessary conditions. Then we will be ready to reconstitute the team. But there comes a time when you have people ready and waiting, you have an infrastructure ready to go, and it was clear to us that we had to disband it and let people return to their jobs.”
“Of course, the Secretary General is ready to quickly rearm the mission when we are given the guarantees,” Dujarric concluded.
The head of the UN reiterated his call to fully respect international humanitarian and human rights laws, including those referring to the treatment and protection of prisoners of war.
Guterres reported on the creation of the fact-finding mission on August 3, at the request of the Governments of Ukraine and the Russian Federation. On August 22 he appointed Lieutenant General (retired) Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, from Brazil, to lead the investigation.
