Red Cross to suspend work in Dnipro after attack on its staff

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Following the attack on its staff, the International Committee of the Red Cross will cease operations of its Dnipro headquarters.

Source: Oleksandr Vlasenko, the spokesperson of the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ukraine, writes Radio Liberty 

Details: According to Vlasenko, the delegation intends to update its safety guidelines.

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Quote: “We have offices in Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Odesa, as well as the head office in Kyiv and Lviv, and on the other side, in Donetsk and Luhansk. So far, our Dnipro office has been offline for some time.”

Vlasenko noted that the ICRC will conduct its own investigation into the situation to understand whether “any mistakes were made on our part”. At the same time, the spokesman expressed hope that in the near future the office will return to work.

He specified that the attack on the ICRC mission occurred before its employees began to distribute humanitarian aid, otherwise “there could have been much more casualties”.

Commenting on the fact that the ICRC leadership has not named those responsible for the attack, Vlasenko said that the organisation “does not know exactly” who is to blame for it.

Quote: “Employees of the Ukrainian mission have been killed before, including one in Donetsk in October 2014. However, I recall that our employees in the Gaza Strip, Ethiopia, and Yemen have also been killed. We never try to assign blame to anyone in particular. It is indeed a catastrophe for us. Every time we lose an employee, it is a big tragedy. As a result, it is less necessary for us to name specific criminals than it is to ensure that this does not happen again.”

Background: 

• On 12 September, three ICRC staff members were killed and two others injured in a morning artillery attack on Viroliubivka in Kostiantynivka hromada, Donetsk Oblast. A lorry carrying humanitarian aid and a car were destroyed.
• The ICRC said their team had been preparing to distribute firewood and fuel briquettes north of Donetsk when their vehicles came under fire. The organisation’s statement did not specify who carried out the attack.
• Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, noted that the dead and injured were ICRC staff members who were in the lorry at the time of the attack. He urged the ICRC to publicly condemn Russia’s actions, which violate the Geneva Conventions, and expressed outrage at the lack of response from international organisations.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed regret that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been hesitant to blame Russia for a strike on humanitarian mission vehicles in Donetsk which resulted in the deaths of three ICRC staff members.

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