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Crime

12th Apr 2022

Boy, 11, ‘raped by Russian troops as horrified mother tied to chair and forced to watch’

Kieran Galpin

A human rights advocate begged the UN for assistance

An 11-year-old boy was allegedly raped as his mother was tied to a chair and forced to watch by Russian forces.

Ukraine’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights Lyudmila Denisova has spoken about the incident that is said to have taken place in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. She also claimed that five soldiers had assaulted a 14-year-old girl who had become pregnant, according to reports.

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Speaking to the United Nations on April 12, Kateryna Cherepakha, president of La Strada-Ukraine, said her group’s hotlines have been ringing non-stop with reports of sexual assault.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” she told officials. “We know and see – and we want you to hear our voices – that violence and rape is used now as a weapon of war by Russian invaders in Ukraine.”

The BBC on Monday told the story of 50-year-old ‘Anna’ (not her real name), who said she was attacked by Russian soldiers who stormed her home on March 7. After a soldier described as “young” and “thin” raped her, she found her husband left for dead with a bullet wound in his abdomen. He died two days later.

Anastasiia Lapatina from the Kyiv Independent obtained an intercepted phone conversation between a Russian soldier and his wife.

“I really thought I’ve seen the worst of it,” she wrote on Twitter. “But I just heard an intercepted call of a Russian woman telling her partner to rape Ukrainian women, just not tell her about it. “I allow it, just use protection”. What the actual fuck.”

According to other reports, another woman, 83-year-old Vera, is believed to have been raped while her disabled husband was powerless to stop it.

“I told the one who raped me, ‘I’m old enough to be your mother. Would you let this happen to your mother?'” she told CBS. “He made me shut up.” The news station also learned of a 16-year-old girl in the same village who had also been raped.

“He should have shot me,” Vera added. “I wish he had killed me instead of what he did.”

Last week, reports of body mutilation came from Ukrainian politician Lesia Vasylenko.

She shared a pictured of what she said was the “tortured body of a raped and killed woman”. A swastika was branded into the dead woman’s chest.

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