PRAGUE, March 31, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - A Ukrainian rights group on Thursday 
urged the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to return to the war-ravaged country and resume rights monitoring.

The OSCE evacuated its international staff when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, leaving rights monitoring to local bodies, said the Human Rights House Crimea watchdog.

OSCE observers were deployed with Moscow's consent in 2014 to monitor a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine where pro-Moscow separatist rebels had fought Ukrainian forces.

They were the only neutral witnesses to events, publishing daily reports.

"OSCE members in Ukraine had flak jackets, helmets, bulletproof cars, but they left everything and left Ukraine," Olga Skripnik from the Ukrainian rights group told reporters on a visit to Prague.

"We're asking the OSCE to return to Ukraine and help, or to provide protective gear to Ukraine as Russia's crimes are now being documented by unprotected Ukrainians," she added.

Maria Sulialina from the rights group said international organisations should also help evacuate children and civilians and facilitate humanitarian aid supplies to occupied cities.

"Out of 15,000 schools in Ukraine, 790 have been hit by shelling and 75 have been completely destroyed," she said, adding that at least 148 children had died and 222 had been injured during the invasion.

Skripnik urged the establishment of a tribunal to sue Russia over the invasion.

"Ukraine is not the first victim of Russian aggression. Russia has already killed people in Chechnya... and has never been punished," she said.

Skripnik said the group was also working on a legal mechanism enabling 
Ukraine to use the frozen money of Russian oligarchs to "treat children who have lost their arms and legs in the shelling or rebuild Ukrainian cities".

The OSCE, which began a forum for East-West dialogue in the 1970s, counts 57 member states on three continents -- including the United States and other NATO allies as well as Russia and Ukraine.

On March 3, the OSCE reported its Ukrainian member Maryna Fenina had died in the shelling of the eastern city of Kharkiv.