Whether ethnic cleansing or genocide, the internal or external displacement of populations by force or appropriation is always an attack on domiciles. Domicide becomes a covering term for the abuse of state power in removing domiciles.
NEW YORK (28 October 2022) – The massive, arbitrary destruction of civilian housing in violent conflict should be recognised as a crime under international law, the UN’s independent housing rights expert told the General Assembly today.
“We should stop shutting our eyes to widespread or systematic destruction of civilian homes in conflict,” said Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing. Rajagopal referred to these acts as “domicide”.
“The attacking, bombing and shelling of civilian targets, the razing of entire cities and villages – displacing millions into homelessness – have continued unabated despite the development of modern human rights and humanitarian law,” the UN expert said.
While international law outlaws all forms of arbitrary housing destruction, deportation, displacement and forced eviction, the Special Rapporteur noted an alarming continuity of gross violations of the right to adequate housing in times of conflict.
”We need to end impunity for such severe human rights violations,” Rajagopal said. Victims of these war crimes and systematic violations of the right to adequate housing must have access to justice, restitution or reparation, the expert said.
“I have witnessed how in just a few seconds a home – the culmination of a life-long effort and the pride of entire families – can be wiped out and turned to rubble. Destroyed is not only a home. Destroyed are the savings of entire families. Destroyed are memories and the comfort of belonging,” the Special Rapporteur said. “Along with this comes a social and psychological trauma that is difficult to describe or imagine.”
In a path-breaking report, Rajagopal urged States to recognise “domicide” - the systematic or widespread violation of the right to adequate housing – as an international crime of its own standing.
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Russian forces are orchestrating a "massive displacement" program to depopulate Ukrainian territory that falls under their control.
Washington CNN — (2022)
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been processed through a series of Russian “filtration camps” in Eastern Ukraine and sent into Russia as part of a systemized program of forced removal, according to four sources familiar with the latest Western intelligence – an estimate far higher than US officials have publicly disclosed.
After being detained in camps operated by Russian intelligence officials, many Ukrainians are then forcibly relocated to economically depressed areas in Russia, in some cases thousands of miles from their homes, and often left with no means of returning, sources said.
Although some Ukrainians have voluntarily entered filtration camps to try to escape the fighting by entering Russia, many have been picked up against their will at check points and in bomb shelters. After spending an average of around three weeks at the camps – where sources and eyewitnesses say they are held in inhuman conditions, interrogated and sometimes tortured – some are sent across the border into Russia and given state documentation.
From checkpoints in Rostov and other Russian towns, many Ukrainians are then relocated to far-flung corners across Russia, the sources said. In some cases, Ukrainians have been sent to Sakhalin Island, a distant spit in the Pacific Ocean on Russia’s far east – 10,000 miles from the Ukrainian border. If they are fortunate, sources tell CNN, Russia will provide housing in residential areas and perhaps a Russian SIM card and a small amount of money.
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