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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Mariupol invisible prisoners |
| 2022-08-09 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Tatiana Nikolayenko [Censor] The brutal killing of our captured Azov people in Yelenovka is another way out of the bounds of any humanity of the Russians. Last Thursday, the relatives of the prisoners gathered in Sofia Square to ask the world to recognize Russia as a terrorist country and to demand access of the Red Cross to the living prisoners. However, there are people in Ukraine who have been wandering the stairs of hell for several months, because they do not even know what happened to their relatives. These are, in particular, relatives of conscript National Guardsmen who defended Mariupol. Many of these boys died during the defense of the city, many were captured, but there are also those whose fate is unknown. More precisely, there are eyewitnesses who saw how they were captured, but they were not officially given the status of a prisoner. The nephew of my interlocutor was a conscript of the 3057th military unit of the National Guard. He was drafted in the summer of 2021 and was assigned to Mariupol. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the boy communicated with his relatives every day - by phone or SMS. But that lasted only until March 9. "They were in a cheerful mood. They said: "Everything is fine, we are fighting." The only thing they asked was: "How is Kyiv, is it holding up? Is it as terrible there as here?". For some reason, they did not have information," the woman says. Then there were two weeks of complete obscurity, until the families of the National Guardsmen found a contact with the unit and he said that everything is fine, the guys are in position. "Two more weeks passed like this, after which we were told that contact with the positions was lost. Then contact was lost altogether," says the boy's relative. Later it became known that some conscripts got to Azovstal - some were evacuated there wounded, some ran there. It is not known what happened to the others. And somewhere on April 27, one national guard came to the relatives and reported that he had seen a relative of my interlocutor and his brothers taken prisoner. Since then, the family has appealed to all possible authorities. They also found people with the same problems and organized themselves into a common group. Among them are relatives of not only conscripts, but also officers. Relatives complain that they do not know how prisoner registers and exchange lists are formed. "Someone has a video of them being taken prisoner, but they seem to be missing, someone was seen being taken prisoner, as in our case," - notes the interlocutor of Censor.NET. But the boys remained missing, and the military man who apparently saw their capture was not interviewed. At least his relatives do not know about his interrogation. As a result, having lost faith in the Ukrainian government, people begin to look for their relatives ... because of Sharia. "Out of desperation, people become adherents of Sharia, they bow down to him, he mocks people, but what's interesting is that he finds boys, he tells where they can be," says my interlocutor. People were already ready to bring the story to the people, but those in power ask not to do this. Interlocutors of Censor.NET in power say that fortunately there are few such cases. They explain that this problem also arose due to the fact that at first the prisoners were dealt with by several institutions - the Office of the Ombudsman, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk and intelligence. Since May 30, only intelligence has been dealing with the issue of prisoners. But for now, the relatives of the invisible National Guardsmen have only despair, because they do not know where and what happened to their relatives. A few weeks before the events in Yelenovka, my interlocutor managed to find out that her relative was also there, but then they were transferred. |
| Posted by:badanov |