5-Year-Old Boy Wounded by Police Dies

The five-year-old boy from Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi in Kyiv region, who was earlier wounded by the police, died in hospital.

This was reported to Channel 24 by the hospital.

The boy was delivered to the retinal unit of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi central regional hospital on May 31 with a closed craniocerebral injury, brain contusion, intracerebral hematoma, and a fracture of the temporal bone. In the hospital, the child was found to be wounded by a bullet and subsequently rushed to a medical institution in Kyiv.

At present, the main version is that the child was accidentally injured by the police officers, who were found to be drunk during the time of firing in the street, near the place where the boy was walking. Both suspects were detained.

The State Bureau of Investigations reclassified the suspicion to "premeditated murder" on June 3. Initially, the police officers were accused of "reckless grievous bodily harm committed by a group of persons by prior agreement".

The leadership of the police subdivision in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi was suspended from performing official duties. This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Later, in the evening of June 3, people gathered outside the building of Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kyiv demanding the resignation of the Minister Arsen Avakov. Following that, head of the National Police Serhii Knyazev came out to speak and the resignation of Dmytro Tsenov, police chief of the Kyiv region, was announced.

A rally was organized near the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kyiv. People demanded just investigation of the murder of a 5-year-old boy by policemen in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi. June 3 
Photo: Victoria Roshchyna / Hromadske

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised a just punishment for those guilty of the murder. The head of state wrote this on his Facebook page:

"I want to assure you that I will do everything to ensure that the guilty are punished justly. There will be no alleviation or attempts to bury the issue. This tragedy should become a lesson. Those who are obliged to take care of the safety of citizens must remember their responsibility at all times,"  Zelenskyy's statement reads.