War crimes and killing civilians abroad increasingly involve Russian military personnel.
Sent to Kazakhstan, for example, to stabilize the situation under the CSTO flag, Russian troops were involved in shooting civilians. Earlier, they committed war crimes in Ukraine in 2014-2015. On January 6, Russian paratroopers, led by FSB riot control advisors, shooted to kill in Almaty with both standard small arms and heavy machine guns on armored personnel carriers.
Moved to Kazakhstan from Russia, the armed troops played a key role in the central square of Almaty.
Unmarked gunmen intensively fired at weaponless people gathered in the square.
FSB coordinators equipped riot control units with blue helmets, like UN peacekeepers. Unauthorized use of UN uniform resulting in death or serious injury is a war crime, in line with Article 8 of the Rome Statute.
At the same time, 20 bodies were found in the Yidere forest not far from Mambéré-Kadéï prefecture in the west of the Central African Republic. The discovered skeletons constitute veritable evidence of a mass massacre perpetrated by men of the Wagner Security Group against the population of the Central African Republic. The parents of one victim revealed that their son was killed by the Russians, his body searched and all the money on him stolen. According to them, he was a gold trader and they took away his money and some gold they found on him. Locals claim that they can conveniently talk of genocide programmed by these Wagner Security people with the complicity of the regime in Bangui. https://humangle.org/russian-mercenaries-allegedly-kill-17-persons-in-central-african-republic/
The Wagner Group serves domestic interests of the president Faustin-Archange Touadéra to secure uranium, gold and diamond deposits used by the Russians. On October 31st, 2021, the mercenaries launched an effort in the village of Yidere, as the gold mines are their. The bloodshed lasted for a week.
Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Security Group on Tuesday, Jan. 4, encircled Bria, chief town of the Haute-Kotto prefecture, situated 595 kilometres to the north of Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, and went on a systematic arrest of individuals. The shooting eventually resulted in the deaths of four youths: one in Piango quarter, one in Mandet quarter, one in Bornou quarter and the other in Ndrou quarter. At around 5 p.m. the Russian mercenaries invaded the mosque where the corpses of the four victims had been taken for religious rites and took the corpses away.
Since Dec. 15, 2021, Russian mercenaries have been going to town for a systematic arrest of youths whom they take to their base and force to work for them.
On January 6th, a Russian helicopter gunship belonging to the Wagner Security Group has bombed the Ndassima mining site in Bambari, Central African Republic, killing two civilians and injuring 10 others.
Russian mercenaries from the so-called Wagner Group are involved in large-scale human rights violations, sexual abuse and chasing civilians in the Central African Republic (CAR). But the victims of crime are afraid to call for punishment and go to court.
The Wagner Group de facto performs expeditionary missions abroad, acting for the Special Operations Forces. It operates in heavily populated areas, involving big civilian losses and counterinsurgency raids, followed by the mopping-up in residential areas.
The UN has called on the CAR government to break from the Wagner gang and to ensure access to the courts for those who have become victims of crimes committed by its mercenaries. But Russia’s right of veto at the UN, and its control over some UN institutional structures, block the investigation of such cases. A statement by the UN experts, however, indicates that the organization has repeatedly received reports on the Wagner gang involvement in torture, sexual violence against women and men, executions, kidnapping and other crimes and human rights violations.
