Kiev refused any initiatives on search for missing persons for six years – Morozova

Comments and statements of the Ombudsman News

The Ukrainian authority has blocked any offers on the joint work on the search for missing persons in Donbass since 2015. Today, the Human Rights Ombudsman in the DPR Daria Morozova stated that to DAN.

“The issue on the search for missing persons in connection with the conflict in Donbass and the identification of unidentified bodies that is one of the key issues submitted to the subgroup’s consideration (on humanitarian issues – ed. DAN). However, it has not been possible to make progress in this direction within the Minsk platform since 2015. Kiev ignores any initiatives of the DPR, including the proposal to create a unified search mechanism,” said Morozova.

According to her, Ukrainian negotiators even block the consideration of the transfer of already identified remains. The Ombudsman also recalled that the opponents did not even react to the mechanism of searching for people proposed by the ICRC.

“That is, official Kiev ignores even humanitarian initiatives of international organizations. This once again confirms that the ideas of peace and humanism are foreign to Ukraine, and the problems of the residents of Donbass, to say the least, are not interesting,” Morozova emphasized.

It should be recalled that in July, the DPR and LPR created interdepartmental commissions on the search for missing persons on their territory. Their tasks, in particular, include organizing search activities to clarify the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared, compiling a single register, coordinating issues of exhumation, identifying bodies and transferring them to relatives for burial.

In Donetsk, the commission was headed by Ombudsman Daria Morozova. For the first time, the exhumation of bodies took place in mid-August in Snezhnoye in the east of the Republic. According to the  latest data, the remains of 19 people were found there. Two days ago, experts began the exhumation in Debaltsevo and the first results are already available.

Source: ДАН