When a stranger called EuroMaidan volunteer Yusif Mirishov and invited him to take shower at his apartment, he agreed at once.
For protesters who live in poor conditions of protester-occupied buildings around Independence Square it’s a common practice to take such invitations. On Jan. 23, Mirishov left the protest camp where he had spent almost two months and headed to the stranger’s place. He never came back.
The Azerbaijan native is one of 26 people currently missing since the anti-government EuroMaidan demonstrations began on Nov. 21. A list of missing people is maintained by volunteers and updated every day. It numbered 36 people on Feb. 3, but some were since located while others were declared missing.
All 26 missing protesters are men, age 14 to 57. Eight of them are of unknown age, and the dates when people went missing are unknown in half the cases. Most people are listed as missing since Jan. 23. Serhiy Shevchenko, a teenager from Ivano-Frankivsk, is an exception. He left home to go to the protest in Kyiv on Dec. 9 hasn’t been in touch with his family since.
“I take on average five to seven calls every day from people who want to report missing friends or relatives,” says Nadiya Drugova, volunteer at Volya searching group. “Many people come to Kyiv from western Ukraine and lose touch with their families.”
Andriy Zdyr from Terebovlya in Ternopil Oblast is one of the missing. His daughter, Ruslana Zdyr, came home on Jan. 28 to find that her 47-year-old father had left to attend the EuroMaidan protests. “He said he’ll be back home in a day or two, but he never came and never called again,” Ruslana Zdyr said. She didn’t go to police because she feared they would be hostile because of his anti-government stance.
Friends of the missing Mirishov of Azerbaijan didn’t go to police for the same reason.
On Feb. 4, the Interior Ministry said that only nine people from the missing list were reported to the police, and five of them were already found.
“We insist that the families of the missing people go to police,” EuroMaidan SOS coordinator Alisa Novikova said in an interview with the Telekritika media watchdog website.
After a person is reported missing, EuroMaidan volunteers share the information and call police stations and hospitals.
Searching for missing protesters is complicated by the lack of information about them.
The names are called in by either family members or fellow protesters. Sometimes, no photos are provided.
While most of the people on the list are EuroMaidan participants and volunteers, others aren’t.
There are happy endings. One of them is 16-year-old Anastasia Bogdanova-Moroz from Kyiv. She left for Independence Square on Jan. 17. Weeks later, the family located the teenager living in the protester-occupied Trade Unions building, where she was volunteering to cook for anti-government protesters.
People missing at EuroMaidan as of Feb. 5:
Vadym Holovko;
Yevhen Hornychar, 26;
Miron Horodinskiy, 45;
Ruslan Hrihoriev, 18, missing since Jan. 26;
Roman Ivanov, 17, missing since Jan. 27;
Volodymyr Komarov;
Volodymyr Kopiychuk;
Yaroslav Meniuk, 19;
Yusif Mirishov, 48 or 49, missing since Jan. 23;
Mykola Mykytin, 57;
Vasyl Oleksyak, 30;
Ivan Pasichnyak, 46, missing since Jan. 19;
Andriy Potapov, 30, missing since Jan. 23;
Mykola Privert, 14, missing since Jan. 25;
Vadym Protsko, 46, missing since Jan. 20;
Oleksandr Shevchenko, missing since Jan. 23;
Serhiy Shevchenko, 18, missing since Dec. 12;
Roman Tkachuk;
Rostislav Tolstoy, missing since Feb. 2;
Andriy Zdyr, 47, missing since Jan. 28;
Mykhailo Rudak, 40, missing since Jan. 19;
Okesiy Trofimov, missing since Feb. 2;
Maksym Polyakov, 29;
Mykhailo Bilinskiy, 16;
Oleksandr Bozhenka, 27;
Oleh Romanytsia, 19, missing since Jan. 29.
Kyiv Post lifestyle editor Olga Rudenko can be reached at rudenko@kyivpost.com
