Red Cross employees freed in Donetsk, one severely beaten – ICRC

11:53, 10.05.2014 1 min read

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) employees who were taken hostage on Friday have been freed in Donetsk.

"They were let go at about 2 a.m. One is severely beaten, he is staying at a hospital," Iryna Tsariuk from the ICRC Ukrainian office told Interfax.

Online media outlet Novosti Donbassa reported earlier that unknown men had taken hostage seven employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross. It said the humanitarian organization's office on Vatutina Avenue in the center of Donetsk was attacked on Friday night.

ICRC employees told the media outlet the attackers let women go and abducted seven men. The hostages are ICRC volunteers from Kyiv and Donetsk citizens, who brought drugs to the Donetsk office in the evening of May 9. One of them is a citizen of France, the media outlet reported.

The attackers grabbed the drugs and took away the hostages in an unknown direction. The media outlet reported the hostages were being held in the seized building of the Donetsk region state administration.