Employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross have access to Ukrainian prisoners and are trying to control the situation with prisoners in occupied Olenivka.
The speaker of the ICRC in Ukraine Oleksandr Vlasenko told Obshchestvenny that the experts visited the Ukrainian prisoners twice, but did not have the opportunity to talk to them face to face.
The speaker noted that the visit was short and did not fully meet the current requirements of the ICRC. According to him, the purpose of this visit was simply to bring drinking water there in order to provide the basic necessities for the first time.
To some people we have access and had access. In Olenevka we really were twice. After the prisoners of war were moved there, it was literally two or three days after they were transported to Olenevka,” he said.
The official noted that the Red Cross now has access to some prisoners of war, and is trying to keep the situation with prisoners in Olenovka under control. He divided the prisoners held in Olenovka into three categories.
These are wounded people who have been moved to medical facilities – they are receiving hospital care. The second category is people who did not suffer as a result of the July 29 tragedy. The third category is the bodies of dead people, which we would also like to see,” the official explained.
According to him, the ICRC has forensic specialists who could analyze the causes of the tragedy.
Recall that during the explosion on the night of July 29, which thundered on the territory of the former penal colony in the Olenevka village in the temporarily occupied territory of the Donetsk region, the building where Ukrainian prisoners of war were kept was destroyed. According to the Russians, more than 50 Ukrainian defenders were killed. According to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, 130 people were injured.
The identities of some of those killed in the explosion have been established. On August 3, UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced that the UN was launching a “fact-finding mission” of the tragedy in the Yelenovskaya colony.
The Association of Families of Defenders of Azovstal accused the Red Cross of inaction, and also spoke negatively about the trip of the head of the organization to Moscow. In particular, a member of the association, Sandra Krotevich, also stated that such trips mean that a certain organization “plays along with the Russian side.”
Source: Racurs
