Alice Jill Edwards, Special Rapporteur of the World Organization on Torture and Ill-treatment, said that the damage from their use will be indiscriminate and will last for decades
GENEVA, September 20. /tass/. The UN Special Rapporteur on torture and ill-treatment, Alice Jill Edwards, demanded that the US authorities reconsider the decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, noting that the damage from their use will be indiscriminate and will last for decades. This was reported by the press service of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
In July, she sent an urgent message to the US government, in which she called for "an assessment of how the decision to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine is compatible with [the US] obligations in the field of international law, especially with regard to the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and the obligation to protect the right to life of all people." The UN has not received a response to this request, and now the letter has become public.
Separately, the special rapporteur expresses concern that Washington may soon transfer long-range missiles to Kiev, which may have a cluster warhead. She stressed that such weapons could cause "indiscriminate and serious" damage to the civilian population, "both at the time of use and after the end of the conflict, and potentially for decades."
Earlier, Reuters reported that the United States is close to approving the supply of long-range ATACMS or GMLRS missiles with a cluster warhead to Ukraine. According to ABC, the United States may include ATACMS in the next package of military assistance to Kiev. But, as the head of the press service of the State Department, Matthew Miller, said at a briefing for journalists, Washington has not changed its position on possible supplies of ATACMS to Ukraine and does not transfer them to Kiev.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum, said that the supply of new weapons to Ukraine, including cluster munitions, ammunition with depleted uranium, will not change the situation at the front and only lead to a prolongation of the conflict. He recalled that "quite recently, the US administration believed that the use of cluster munitions was a war crime, they publicly said so." Now the United States itself supplies cluster munitions to the combat zone in Ukraine, Putin pointed out.
