In framework of permanent cooperation with United Nations’ bodies and agencies in end of 2024 our Association sent submission to UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) for its next thematic study focusing on enforced disappearances occurring in the context of the defense of land, natural resources, and the environment, to be presented at the UN Human Rights Council and at the UN General Assembly in fall of 2025.
ARC’s submission, published on official UN web sources in February, stressed that, since the outbreak of the war in 2014 and especially after the Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the practice of enforced disappearances has become one of the most common methods of intimidation of citizens in the Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine.
The exact number of people who have disappeared in the Crimea since the beginning of its Russia’s occupation has not yet been established, and among them there were environmental and agricultural activists also.
Also ARC’s submission pointed that some Crimean Tatar activists in Crimea, who were victims of enforced disappearances, discussed ecologic challenges of Russian aggression before their kidnapping by Russian punitive structures.
ARC’s submission reminded to WGEID, that corresponding negative impacts of Russian aggression against sustainable development make impossible its reinvigorating and include atmospheric pollution due to mass extensive emissions of combustion products, the destruction of thousands of square kilometers of forests and plantations near frontline, as well as natural soils in the combat zone close to the Crimea, the intervention of the Russian occupiers in the melioration management and natural watercourses in Southern Ukraine.
All this illegal Russia’s activities give strong negative impact on the rights of population of Russia-occupied areas, including the indigenous peoples, minorities and territorial collectives, ARC’s submission added.
ARC’s submission pointed WGEID attention, that Head of Crimean Tatar Resource Center Eskender Bariiev had to cancel own visit to United Nations’ Baku Climate Change Conference, COP 29 taking into account relevant threats of kidnapping for him from Russian agents in Azerbaijan and our Association’s representative Borys Babin faced such threats from Russian agents personally in Baku airport, after COP 29 during his attempts to return to Ukraine via European countries by plane.
So, ARC’s submission summarized, that next urgent, immediate steps of the WGEID must be done in Ukraine, in condition of ongoing interstate conflict and hostilities, of ongoing Russia’s criminal, discriminative and racist policy against Ukrainians’ rights, including all WGEID’s observation procedures and its visits to Ukraine.
