ICRC ready to send experienced staff to DPR to look for missing persons

Donetsk, Dec 20 – DAN. Two dozen top experts of the International Committee of the Red Cross are on standby to step up the search for the missing persons in the DPR, which includes visits to penitentiaries, the ICRC press service told the Donetsk News Agency on Friday.

Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadim Pristaiko said that nearly 500 missing persons were held captive in Donbass and that the ICRC, allegedly at Kiev’s request, would join the search. This will require identity check of every detainee in the DPR territory, Pristaiko said.

“If we talk about penitentiaries, the visitors will be experienced ICRC delegates. They have professional skills and various custody aspects experience, from treatment of detainees to health issues,” the ICRC said. “The organisation currently employs 20 such experts; they can be sent to Donetsk to visit city penitentiaries.”

No such visits have been arranged since 2015. “The ICRC is ready to visit prisons in Donetsk and Lugansk as soon as it has reached an accord with all authorised bodies. Our teams are waiting for the process to begin,” the press service said.

The search for the missing persons in Donbass has never stopped since the beginning of the armed conflict.

Earlier, the ICRC told DAN that the organisation had not received requests from Ukraine to look for missing persons in the DPR. It said that the ICRC could only engage in the search upon requests of missing persons’ relatives.*jk

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