Amnesty International is accusing Russia of committing war crimes in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. The human rights organization will soon release an in-depth report on the devastation caused by Russia's assault on the city on the Sea of Azov, Amnesty's Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said at a press conference Monday. "The siege of Mariupol, the denial of humanitarian evacuation and humanitarian escape for the population, and the targeting of civilians, according to Amnesty International's investigation, amounts to war crimes," said Callamard, per the AP. "That is the reality of Ukraine right now."
Callamard said "the crisis in Ukraine right now, the invasion ... is not just any kind of violation of international law. It is an aggression. It is a violation of the UN charter of the kind that we saw when the US invaded Iraq." On other topics addressed in Amnesty's annual report, with Callamard noting that, amid the pandemic, large corporations and wealthy countries had increased global inequality in 2021. "Noxious corporate greed and brutal national selfishness, as well as neglect of health and public infrastructure,” deepened existing global inequalities," Callamard said.
Vaccine inequity during the pandemic has entrenched racial injustice, said the report. By the end of 2021, only 8% of Africa’s population of 1.3 billion people had been vaccinated, far short of the World Health Organization’s 40% vaccination target, it said. Participants in Africa's conflicts—including ones in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Ethiopia, and Mali—have committed war crimes and other abuses, Amnesty said. The report said 2021 also saw continued attacks on journalists, activists, and human rights defenders, with some governments using COVID-19 regulations to suppress protests. (The US said last week that it had formally determined that Russia has committed war crimes.)
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