Today, July 19, in Donetsk, parliamentary hearings were held devoted to the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements, approved by UN Security Council Resolution 2202 (2015). The Human Rights Ombudsman Daria Morozova reported on the results of the work of Humanitarian Subgroup in Minsk.
“Representatives of Ukraine in the Humanitarian Subgroup still cannot give a clear response to the important question of the exchange of prisoners, and the issue of the missing has been permanently ignored. Creating the appearance of work is what the Ukrainian side does at the Minsk talks. And this has lasted for a year and a half – nothing specific, irresponsibility and publicity stunts.
At the recent negotiations in Minsk, we raised the important issue of crossing checkpoints on the line of contact. I will insist that checkpoints increase their working hours. Our citizens suffer a lot because of this conflict, and they still have to endure all the hardships of crossing the line of contact: standing in huge lines and spending nights under the shelled territory. I’m also waiting for a response by the Ukrainian side regarding the increase in the weight of hand luggage,” said Morozova.
The Ombudsman noted in her speech that official Kiev is delaying the implementation of the sixth paragraph of the Minsk Agreements, namely, the exchange of “all for all.” “The option proposed by the Ukrainian side – “one for one”- does not suit us. We are not proponents of double standards. If the Ukrainian side is ready to release eight people, it means that it will be able to release all the other officially confirmed prisoners. At the moment, 966 people are being held in custody by the Ukrainian side. Among them, there are 318 servicemen, 454 political prisoners and 154 civilians who are irrelevant to the conflict. 488 people are missing, they may also be in Ukrainian captivity,” said the Human Rights Ombudsman.
Daria Morozova emphasized that the issue of returning our children who were taken out of the DPR to the territory controlled by the Ukrainian security forces remains unresolved: “The Ukrainian side refuses to tell us information about orphans, children deprived of parental care and HIV-positive children, motivating it with the Law on the Protection of Personal Data. Together with UNICEF, work is underway to return about 500 children. ”
Daria Morozova also announced the statistics of destruction and human casualties as a result of shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces against peaceful cities of the Republic.
“Since the beginning of the year, 172 people sustained injuries of varying severities in the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, including 60 servicemen and 112 civilians. Since the outbreak of the armed conflict in the DPR, 4,126 people have died, including 585 women and 3,541 men, including 73 children under the age of 18. As of July 19, as a result of hostilities in our region alone, more than 10,660 infrastructure facilities were partially destroyed,” the Ombudsman reported.
Source: Official website of the DPR
