Reports of the Secretary-General

1. The General Assembly, in paragraph 7 of its resolution 72/190 on the situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, requested the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare, by the end of its seventy-second session, the second dedicated thematic report on the situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine. 2. Pursuant to that request, the report of the Office of the High Commissioner is made available, in the language of submission only, in a conference room paper (A/HRC/39/CRP.4).

The present report is submitted pursuant to the request contained in the statement by the President of the Security Council of 25 November 2015 (S/PRST/2015/23). It also responds to the Council’s request, in its resolution 2286 (2016), for reporting on the protection of medical care in armed conflict.

On 14 March 2014, following a request of the Government of Ukraine addressed to the United Nations Secretary-General to establish a human rights mission in Ukraine, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) deployed a Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU). Since then, HRMMU has been collecting and analyzing information on the human rights situation throughout Ukraine, including in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol on the basis of United Nations General Assembly resolutions 68/262, reaffirming the territorial integrity of Ukraine and 71/205 referring to the Crimean peninsula as Ukrainian territory temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation. According to the Constitution of Ukraine, Crimea and the city of Sevastopol are separate administrative units of the Crimean peninsula having their own governing institutions.

The present report, covering the year 2016, is submitted pursuant to the request contained in the statement by the President of the Security Council of 25 November 2015 (S/PRST/2015/23). It is the thirteenth report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. Herein, I review the global state of the protection of civilians in armed conflict, discuss recent progress and provide recommendations aimed at strengthening such protection. The report also responds to the Council’s request in its resolution 2286 (2016) for enhanced reporting on the protection of medical care in armed conflict.