Militants hold over 900 people captive in eastern Ukraine – human rights activist

Kyiv, December 30 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Illegal armed forces in eastern Ukraine hold over 900 people in captivity, three times as much as the official statistics, Head of the Analytical Department of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Oleh Martynenko has said.

"The number of people held captive is higher than 800-900. According to the official data of the Interior Ministry, this number is 300 people. Human rights violations are completely different," Martynenko said at a press conference in Interfax-Ukraine on Monday.

According to him, it concerns not only soldiers but also all people in Luhansk and Donetsk regions who were affected in any way.

Head of the Monitoring Group of the Center for Civil Liberties Oleksandra Romantsova noted that they had registered numerous human rights violations in eastern Ukraine.

"We can say that human rights violations are simply catastrophic in the territory controlled by [the so-called] 'Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics.' As of the end of June, a NGO in Luhansk region said that over 200 people were held captive. Socially active people, who are interested in politics and who express their opinions get captured,'" Romantsova said.

According to her, all the data on human rights violations collected by the group was presented to law enforcement agencies. Representatives of the monitoring mission sent a request to regional police offices in Donetsk and Luhansk regions to get official data on the number of relevant proceedings and the course of their investigation. A similar request was also sent to the Interior Ministry. However, there hasn't been a response yet.

Romantsova noted that mobile monitoring groups would continue working until they registered all the human rights violations.

The monitoring group from the Center for Civil Liberties and Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union monitored human rights violations during its visit to liberated territories in eastern Ukraine, from December 6 until December 11. The monitors talked to the victims and witnesses of violations, as well as investigating cases of kidnapping, imprisonment and torture.