The Ukrainian citizens who returned home after the captivity of Russia-backed militants need more protection by the state. The Ministry for Temporarily Occupied Areas and Internally Displaced People reported this with reference to Luhansk governor/Deputy Minister Georgiy Tuka and Ukrainian human right watchers.
The activists prepared the report ‘On searching for mechanisms of preventing impunity during the conflict in eastern Ukraine’. According to Alina Pavlyuk, the lawyer working for the Centre for Strategic Affairs of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union, about 3,000 people were identified as those illegally detained in the temporarily occupied territories. About 1,600 of them are the military men, the rest are civilians.
‘Many of them return from captivity with chronic illnesses, for many people are used as labor force for hard work, and often they are unable to heal after that. Such people need extra assistance from the state – medical attention, social assistnance, perhaps even disability recognition’, Olexiy Bida, the human rights watcher, said at a briefing.
‘If you work on respective judicial mechanisms please turn to us for support, we’re ready to provide it. These are our citizens and they need protection’, Georgiy Tuka replied.
