1660855036 UN appoints Brazils General Santos Cruz to lead investigation team

UN appoints Brazil’s General Santos Cruz to lead investigation team into Ukraine attacks

United Nations (UN) SecretaryGeneral António Guterres appointed Brazilian General Carlos dos Santos Cruz to head a mission to investigate the attack on a prison in Olenivka, Ukraine, that left 50 prisoners of war dead.

“General Santos Cruz is a distinguished officer with more than 40 years of national and international experience in public and military security, including commanding UN peacekeeping operations,” Guterres said.

The UN SecretaryGeneral said the organization will work to have access and security guarantees for the team in Olenivka. “In a straightforward manner, a factfinding mission must have the freedom to find out the facts,” Guterres said.

Roberto D'Avila interviews General Santos Cruz

Roberto D’Avila interviews General Santos Cruz

The Santos Cruz team will be responsible for collecting and analyzing the data.

Santos Cruz is a retired general and was the government secretariat from January to June 2019 when he was fired by Bolsonaro after being targeted by the government’s socalled ideological wing. Since then he has been critical of the government and Bolsonaro, and has also questioned the political use of the armed forces by the president, who was an army captain.

In May 2022, he was admitted to the intensive care unit at the Hospital das Forças Armadas (HFA) in Brasília after feeling ill. The general had a heart attack and had to insert two stents (small metal structures placed in the coronary arteries to keep them open and restore or prevent the reduction in blood flow).

What happened in Olenivka?

At the end of July, prisoners of war were killed and 75 wounded in the prison in the city of Olenivka, which is on the frontlines of the war and currently ruled by Russianbacked separatists.

A separatist spokesman put the death toll at 53 and accused the Ukrainian government of using USmade Himars missiles to target the prison.

Ukrainian forces have denied responsibility, saying Russian artillery targeted the prison to cover up mistreatment of inmates there. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Russia had committed a war crime and called for an international conviction.

The building was burned to the ground full of metal beds, some still with charred bodies, and other bodies were strung on military stretchers or on the ground outside.

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