UN has 'reasonable grounds to believe' that Hroza funeral reception attack in Ukraine was intended

GENEVA

The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said Tuesday it has "reasonable grounds to believe" that the attack on the Hroza funeral reception in Ukraine was intended.

The office released a report on the Oct. 5 attack on a cafe in Hroza, a village in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine, which killed 59 people following a reburial ceremony of a local member of the Ukrainian armed forces.

"Based on the information collected and its assessment further to standard methodology, OHCHR has reasonable grounds to believe that there were no military personnel or any other legitimate military target present at or in proximity to the reception at the café that followed the funeral held at the cemetery outside the village," said the report.

It said that victims "were civilians, not participating in hostilities, making the attack one of the deadliest individual incidents for civilians since 24 February 2022."

"OHCHR also has reasonable grounds to believe that the reception was the intended target of an attack by the Russian armed forces, using a precision weapon, likely an Iskander missile," it said.

The findings indicate that the Russian armed forces "either failed to do everything feasible to verify that the target to be attacked was a military objective, rather than civilians or civilian objects, or deliberately targeted civilians or civilian objects."

The office urged Russia to acknowledge responsibility for civilian casualties resulting from the attack and to conduct a full and transparent investigation to hold those responsible to account.