OTTAWA — Atrocities emerging in Ukraine, following the withdrawal of Russian troops from around the capital Kyiv, have prompted calls for an urgent inquiry by a Canadian parliamentary committee on genocide.
MPs and Ukrainian, Jewish and Armenian groups want the parliamentary committee to probe the discovery of civilian bodies in Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv.
The calls came as the RCMP launched a national investigation into allegations of war crimes in Ukraine.
Liberal MP Ali Ehsassi believes the discovery of mass graves and corpses of civilians in areas Russia has withdrawn from must be urgently investigated in Canada's Parliament to establish whether Putin's troops committed genocide.
Ehsassi called for the all-party parliamentary group on the prevention of genocide, which stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic, to be re-established with funding to help it carry out an inquiry.
He said the evidence — including from drone footage — suggested that the civilian killings were "absolutely systematic" and not the work "of a few soldiers" going rogue.
At a virtual news conference on Friday, Ukrainian human rights experts and a Ukrainian MP presented graphic photographs of people in civilian clothes killed in Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel and other areas which were once occupied by Russian armed forces.
The photographs showed dead bodies, including of one person lying face-down with their hands tied behind their back, and of drivers, who had apparently been fleeing from Russian troops, dead at the wheels of their cars.
They also showed women and men's bodies lying in the streets, including the corpse of a man lying by the side of the road with a dog sitting beside him.
Ukrainian MP Oleksandra Ustinova said the intention of the Russians was to "erase us," adding that children had also been "stolen from Ukraine and sent to Russia."
"This is not about the war any more. This is about genocide," she said.
Oleksandr Pavlichenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, claimed that since the beginning of the invasion Russia has targeted civilians.
He presented one photograph, dated from the second day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, of a dead man in civilian clothes at the wheel of a car riddled with bullet holes.
Pavlichenko said in one village Russian troops had deliberately targeted Ukrainians while sparing ethnic Russians.
"I have witnesses who visited. They … explained that all the Ukrainians from this village who were speaking Ukrainian, they were killed," he said.
He said Russian troops interrogated inhabitants and shot Ukrainian speakers, also examining their phones for pro-Ukrainian or anti-Russian material. They spared those who spoke Russian or attempted to reply in Russian, he said.
Ihor Michalchyshyn, CEO and executive director of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, said re-establishing Canada's all-party parliamentary group for genocide prevention would give MPs tools to lead the fight against genocide.
"Russia’s war against Ukraine is an attempt by Russia to annihilate the Ukrainian people. Civilians are targeted with air and missile attacks bombed, shot, executed. Women and girls are being raped by Russian occupation forces," he said. "The systemic, horrific, targeted and premeditated crimes against humanity that Russia is currently committing in Ukraine are an attempted genocide against the Ukrainian people."
Sheba Birhanu of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said an inquiry by a fully-funded non-partisan genocide committee would help guide the response of Parliament and the government to atrocities in Ukraine.
"As Russia continues its brutal invasion of Ukraine, subjecting the Ukrainian people to unspeakable horrors, we must have mechanisms that can both warn the government and Parliament of imminent human rights issues around the world and inform their response," she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 8, 2022.
Marie Woolf, The Canadian Press
