Humanitarian situation during the war in Donbas
During the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War between the Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region of Ukraine that began in April 2014, many international organisations and states noted a deteriorating humanitarian situation in the conflict zone.
[1] The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) reported growing lawlessness in the region, documenting cases of targeted killings, torture, and abduction.
[4][5][6] In a report from HRMMU, again in May 2014,[7] Ivan Šimonović, UN Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights,[8] wrote about illegal detention, abduction and intimidation of election officials in the self-proclaimed pro-Russian republics, and called for urgent action to prevent a Balkans-style war.
[38] As the shaky ceasefire implemented by the Minsk Protocol became increasingly untenable in early November 2014, it was reported that the number of people that had fled insurgent-held areas of Donbas had reached one and a half million.
Apart from ordinary citizens taken as forced labour by separatists,[42] these include journalists, city officials, local politicians, and members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
[49] In early July 2014, Amnesty International published evidence of beatings, torture, and abduction of activists, protesters and journalists by separatists in the Donbas region since the start of the unrest in April.
"[50] A report by the United Nations OHCHR that was released on 28 July said that insurgent groups continued "to abduct, detain, torture and execute people kept as hostages in order to intimidate and to exercise their power over the population in raw and brutal ways".
[53] A report released on the same day by Human Rights Watch criticised government forces for "the serial arrests of Russian journalists in Ukraine" and "the actions of extremists like parliamentarian Oleh Lyashko, who has repeatedly abducted and abused people accused of involvement with the insurgency".
The situation was greatly exacerbated by the late 2014 move by the Ukrainian government to cut off all pension payments to people in the separatist-controlled areas, along with hospital, nursing home, prison, and orphanage funding.
[72] According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs early 2016 69% of households in separatist controlled areas had difficulty accessing food markets due to rising prices and poverty.
[78] After the International Committee of the Red Cross paid $700,000 to cover debts for power and water supplies in the separatist controlled territories of Luhansk Oblast they resumed working.
[79] Quarantine measures imposed by Ukraine, the DPR, and the LPR prevented those in the occupied territories from crossing the line of contact, removing access to critical resources.
[83] A press release from the organisation said "These rules and principles [international humanitarian law] apply to all parties to the non-international armed conflict in Ukraine, and impose restrictions on the means and methods of warfare that they may use".
Separatists with bayonet-equipped automatic rifles in the city of Donetsk paraded captured Ukrainian soldiers through the streets on 24 August, the Independence Day of Ukraine.
Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty, met with Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on the same day, and urged him and his government to bring the territorial defence battalions "under effective lines of command and control, to promptly investigate all allegations of abuses and to hold those responsible to account".
On the side of a road in the village, OSCE monitors reported that they saw a mound of dirt that "resembled a grave", had "a stick with a plaque" that said "died for Putin's lies", and which also listed the names of five people.
AI deputy director for Europe and Central Asia Denis Krivosheev said that "the new evidence of these summary killings confirms what we have suspected for a long time".
In villages Dolomitne, Nevelske, Novooleksandrivka, Opytne, Pisky, Roty, and Vidrodzhenniato the Ukrainian troops block access of the local population to medical care.
UN observers also registered multiple episodes of sexual abuse against locals, mainly women, at the border checkpoints run by both Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian armed groups.
[122][123] On 25 April 2014, the International Criminal Court (ICC) started a preliminary examination of crimes against humanity that may have occurred in Ukraine in the 2014 Euromaidan protests and civil unrest, the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and the war in Donbas.
Western governments responded hesitantly to the proposal, with British permanent representative to the United Nations Sir Mark Lyall Grant saying "It is deeply ironic that Russia should call for an emergency meeting of the council to discuss a humanitarian crisis largely of its own creation".
Western governments were weary of the plan, which NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said was part of "developing the narrative and the pretext" for an invasion of Ukraine "under the guise of a humanitarian operation".
It consisted of 280 army lorries, painted white, and was said to carry 2,000 tonnes (2,200 short tons) of goods, "including grain, sugar, medicine, sleeping bags and power generators".
There were suggestions that the convoy was a trojan horse (or "Trojan centipede"[133]) operation, to "smuggle weapons to rebel militias rapidly running low on fuel and ammunition"[131] Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, said that there were "three conditions" that had to be met by the Russian convoy: it should cross the border at a post controlled by the State Border Guard, it should be accompanied by ICRC workers, and it should clearly state its destination, its route, and what it carried.
[166] On 17 April, pro-Russian separatists aided by Russian military specialists seized a TV tower providing signals to cities in the Donetsk region.
[167][better source needed] Boruch Gorin, a senior figure in the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, told The Jerusalem Post that rebel leaders "have allowed themselves to employ fully anti-Semitic rhetoric on previous occasions."
[171] The website "romea.cz" stated that Romani have fled Sloviansk "en masse to live with relatives in other parts of the country, fearing ethnic cleansing, displacement and murder".
The organisation called on Russia "to use its influence with pro-Russia separatist groups to cease their destabilizing activity that could be perceived as enabling violence and intimidation targeted at Roma.
"[169] Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk said that his government would not tolerate incitement of ethnic hatred and would take all legal measures to prevent the import into Ukraine of anti-Semitism and xenophobia.
[173] In the territories occupied by Russia, LGBT representatives are persecuted by the government, do not have any protection (including private property) and are deprived of even high-quality medical or legal assistance [174][175][176][177][178][179][180]
