MOSCOW, September 25 (RIA Novosti) – The authorities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic should inform the United Nations (UN) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) about the mass graves of civilians found near the city of Donetsk, John Laughland, one of the founders of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group said Thursday.
According to Laughland, the authorities of Donetsk should send the information they have about the mass graves to the UN and ICC as the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are too biased when it comes to Russia and anything related to it.
Laughland also said that it is a shame that Western media are not covering the news about the discovery of the grave.
On September 23 several mass graves filled with bodies of massacred civilians, killed execution-style, were unearthed near the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk. So far, four bodies have been recovered from one site and five from another.
Russia called on international organizations to join the investigation into the deaths of civilians buried in the mass graves.
A senior Russian diplomat suggested Wednesday that there are grounds to believe that National Guard volunteer forces had previously controlled the area where the bodies were buried, which might prove their involvement.
Ukrainian authorities have denied the accusations, saying that not a single National Guard fighter has been in the area, adding however that some other Ukrainian units were deployed there at the time.
According to United Nations data, the military conflict in eastern Ukraine has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people. The deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Andrei Purgin, put the number at 4,000 on Monday.
