The chairman of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Mauer, who has been very active since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, is expected to travel to Moscow tomorrow, Tuesday, to discuss mainly hostilities and prisoners of war, he told French. Agency.
The IAEA chief’s trip to Moscow comes after a five-day visit to Ukraine last week, where he met with Prime Minister Dennis Smihal and various ministers.
The Swiss did not meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky and is not scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week.
“I am going to Moscow tomorrow and I hope to have talks in Moscow on Wednesday and Thursday. I will meet with high-ranking representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said Mauer, from the ICC headquarters in Geneva.
“My goal is to promote certain issues such as the issue of prisoners of war, the dead, the conduct of hostilities … all issues that stem directly from our role as guardian of the Geneva Conventions,” he explained.
One of the main roles of the ICC is to ensure that war veterans respect the rights of prisoners of war. In international armed conflicts, the Geneva Conventions also recognize in the ICC the right to visit prisoners of war.
The international community has not yet begun visiting Ukrainian and Russian prisoners, but Mauer has been very optimistic.
“I think we have received very positive feedback from both sides on our mission and our role in the Geneva Conventions,” he said, referring to visits to prisoners. “We have started to receive important information that will allow us to start large-scale visits, I think very soon.”
– “Surprised” –
On the 26th day of the invasion of Ukraine, which was decided by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the bombing continues in several cities: in Kyiv, Kharkov, Mariupol, Odessa, Mykolaif …
In Mariupol, a large, mostly Russian-speaking port city in the south that has been besieged and bombed by the Russians for weeks, 350,000 people remain trapped in the rubble, which is full of corpses and deprived of everything.
Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ICRC had a group in Mariupol, but was forced to leave the city last week with their families without being able to help the population.
“We are ready to offer humanitarian aid to Mariupol. We have made logistical arrangements so that we are ready to enter the city as soon as it is possible and as soon as a safe road is accessible. But that is not the case at the moment,” Mauer said.
The ICRC, Mauer said, called for an agreement between the parties to provide precise and specific indications of “breaks” in the fighting – or at least to provide security guarantees – so that humanitarian workers could deliver aid.
They also need to clear the streets of ammunition scattered around them. “These roads are full of unexploded ordnance, mines. It would be dangerous without the cooperation of the two sides to enter the city without these detailed agreements,” Mauer explained.
The ICRC chairman said he was “surprised” by the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, but recalled that war has been raging in Europe for some time, stressing that the organization has been present in eastern Ukraine for the past eight years.
Today, the ICRC offers on the one hand humanitarian aid to those in need in Ukraine and on the other hand, supports the internally displaced population through financial assistance.
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