ReliefWeb

Please see below statement by Refugees International President Eric P. Schwartz:

"The Russian government and its military forces are responsible for the commission of war crimes in Ukraine.

The reporting on indiscriminate attacks against civilians in Ukraine has now made that clear. Refugees International strongly supports the decision of the International Criminal Court prosecutor to proceed to open an investigation of this issue pursuant to the Ukrainian government's 2015 decision to accept the jurisdiction of the Court to examine war crimes committed on Ukrainian territory, and pursuant to the requirements of the Rome Statute. We encourage any State Party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to refer the Ukraine situation to the ICC pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Rome Statute, thus authorizing the prosecutor to launch an immediate official investigation.

Our concerns on this issue are only amplified by a record of reports of abuses of international humanitarian law in prior Russian military activity, perhaps most recently in Syria. The resulting forced displacement and suffering---whether in Ukraine, Syria, or other parts of the world---are the inevitable result of practices that merit condemnation."

*For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Refugees International's VP for Strategic Outreach Sarah Sheffer at ssheffer@refugeesinternational.org. *