ORDLO holds 152 hostages – Iryna Gerashchenko

10:48, 31.10.2017 1 min read

There are 152 people in the occupied territories of Ukraine who are held hostages, First deputy speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's representative in the humanitarian subgroup of the trilateral contact group (TCG), Iryna Gerashchenko has reported.

"Some 152 hostages remain in the occupied Donbas, including journalists, volunteers and nine women. There are six teenagers held in jail for more than a year. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other international organizations are not allowed to visit them. Russia holds dozens of political prisoners - Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, solely for their pro-Ukrainian position," Gerashchenko wrote on her Facebook page on Tuesday.

She noted that "during the three years of the war, 2,328 army soldiers were killed in Donbas, three of them were women, more than 8,300 military men were injured, including 24 women." The first deputy speaker reminded that according to UN estimates, more than 10,000 people were killed and 25,000 people injured in the east of Ukraine.