ICRC and Lugansk Red Cross Delegation Inspect Starobelsk Attack Site, Confirm Death of 21 People Following Ukrainian Strike
Moscow. A delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), together with the leadership of the Lugansk Red Cross (LRC), visited the site of the Ukrainian attack on a student dormitory in Starobelsk, Lugansk People’s Republic, on June 2, according to Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Rodion Miroshnik.
The ICRC delegates were able to thoroughly examine the site of the tragedy. They were granted access to the rooms of the students killed and wounded in the destroyed dormitory, as well as to classrooms and other educational facilities in the academic building of the Starobelsk branch of Lugansk Pedagogical University and the premises of Starobelsk College. Representatives of the ICRC and the LRC also met with witnesses to the crime.
In conversations with students and local residents, representatives of the international organisation received confirmation that a series of strikes had hit the premises of educational institutions where students and teachers were present, killing 21 young people and wounding more than 40 civilians.
The delegates paid tribute to the victims at the “wall of grief” memorial created by Starobelsk residents, a place where hundreds of flowers are laid every day and where the grieving parents and loved ones of the students killed in the attack continue to gather.
The ICRC and LRC delegates also visited the Lugansk Republican Hospital, where seven wounded students had been taken. Four of them remain there, one in extremely serious condition. Two young people have been transferred to a federal clinic in Moscow. Psychologists are working with all the wounded young people.
At the end of the visit, the ICRC and LRC delegates held a meeting with the Human Rights Commissioner of the Lugansk People’s Republic, who provided detailed explanations regarding the circumstances in which the crime against civilians in Starobelsk was committed.
