SLOVIANSK/DONETSK, Ukraine – Finally free from the clutches of Russian-backed separatists who abducted her, Hanna, a pro-Ukraine activist from Donetsk, tells a dispiriting tale.
“My face was smashed – he punched me in
the face with his fist, he was trying to beat me everywhere, I was covering
myself with my hands… I was huddled in the corner, curled up in a ball with my
hands around my knees. He was angry that I was trying to protect myself. He
went out and came back with a knife,” Hanna, who did not give her name for fear of reprisals from her former captors, told human rights observers from
Amnesty International, according to a report released on July 11.
Hanna and her boyfriend Fyodor told
Amnesty’s observers they were abducted by armed men in Donetsk on May 27 and held captive for
six days before being released as part of a prisoner exchange. They believe
they were captured because of their pro-Ukraine stance and work as activists.
Her harrowing tale is merely one of hundreds,
as the number of abductions mounts amid an ongoing war that began in April
between Kyiv’s government forces and pro-Russia separatists who have seized control
over vast swaths of land, including the major cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, in
eastern Ukraine.
While definitive statistics on abductions are hard to come by, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry has reported some 500 cases since the onslaught of the conflict in April. The Amnesty report says that the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission for Ukraine recorded 222 abduction cases in that time.
Human rights observers say the kidnappings by
the rebels are meant to intimidate the local population. But hostages are also
being kept and used as human shields, locked away in rooms of rebel-occupied
buildings to keep Ukrainian forces from striking them by air and bombarding
them with heavy artillery, observers say. Others are held for ransom.
On June 24, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic warned that the situation in eastern Ukraine is “rapidly deteriorating.” Three weeks on, Amnesty International says the situation is only worsening.
“The bulk of the abductions are being perpetrated by armed separatists, with the victims often subjected to stomach-turning beatings and torture,” Amnesty’s Deputy Europe and Central Asia Director Denis Krivosheev said, adding that there is also “evidence of a smaller number of abuses by pro-Kyiv forces.”
Among the buildings in which hostages have been held – and perhaps the darkest – was the security services, or SBU, building in Sloviansk, the command center for the rebel commander Igor Strelkov, also known as Igor Girkin, a Muscovite who admitted to journalists in Donetsk on July 10 that he had retired from the Russian Security Service (FSB) in March 2013. Documents uncovered there by Kyiv Post also showed the building served as the place for secret tribunals and orders to execute at least three prisoners.
Dozens of hostages were brought to and held inside the dark and dank celler of the Sloviansk SBU. The case of Vice News’ Simon Ostrovsky is perhaps the most widely reported. He was taken and held in a small room in the cellar for three days, enduring regular beatings and psychological torture before being released.
That’s where he met the brother of Yevgeniy Gapych. The two men – also journalists – were captured in the neighboring city of Artemivsk before being brought to Sloviansk. Gapych told the Kyiv Post that he and his brother were held for days in horrendous conditions and forced to confess to being spies.
“Yes, I was kept in the basement. My brother was held together with Simon Ostrovsky and others,” he said. “They thought that I was a spy and beat a confession out of me.”
Shown a copy of a letter penned by his brother, he said, “my brother told me that he wrote an explanation. It’s his handwriting. I did not write this explanation, although they demanded from me. I told them, ‘If you must, then write themselves.’”
The Kyiv-based Ukrainian journalist Irma Krat was another hostage. She was captured in April and held for more than two months. Much of her time in captivity was spent inside the basement of the SBU. It was there that the Kyiv Post recovered her passport and press card among the dirt and ash on the floor after rebels retreated from the city on July 5. Krat was seen by a journalist from Le Monde fleeing the city shortly after the rebels fled and is reportedly safe with family in Kyiv.
Until recently, many of the cases had not been widely publicized. In an interview with the Kyiv Post, Kateryna Sergatskova, a 26-year-old reporter for local news website Ukrainska Pravda, who has documented cases of abduction in eastern Ukraine, said that is likely due to the families of the missing persons not speaking out for fear of reprisals from rebels.
She has compiled a list with around 100 names gathered from media reports and dozens of interviews in eastern Ukraine.Her list grows “everyday,” she said.
Among the cases she has documented is that of three men abducted and later found floating dead in a river with their stomachs cut open on the outskirts of Sloviansk. Sergatskova said that they are likely to have been held first in the SBU building. Before the it was freed from rebel hands, as many as 200 people had been held there over the course of the conflict.
Still, as many as 100 people are believed to remain in captivity inside a police building in nearby Horlivka, which is controlled by Igor Bezler, a rebel militia leader who has carried out mock executions, according to Sergatskova’s records.
The city is known to be among the most violent in the Donetsk region. Volodymyr Rybak, a pro-Ukraine city council member who tried to remove a separatist flag atop a city building, was abducted and reportedly killed by rebels. His mutilated body was discovered at the bank of a nearby river shortly after, in May.
In its report, Amnesty said “if Ukraine is to re-establish the rule of law once the conflict is over is must ensure that every allegation of human rights violations committed by both sides in the conflict are promptly, effectively and independently investigated.”
“This is a vital element in creating peace and reconciling both sides of this conflict.”
Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter at @ChristopherJM.
Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from the project www.mymedia.org.ua, financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action.The content in this article may not necessarily reflect the views of the Danish government, NIRAS and BBC Action Media.
