OSCE Says Ukraine Monitors Still Missing
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said on Sunday it still had no news from two teams detained in eastern Ukraine by separatist gunmen despite reports of their release.
The Vienna-based security body said both a four-member international team nabbed in the Donetsk region on Monday and another four European monitors and their local translator abducted in neighboring Lugansk on Thursday remained out of contact.
Various rebel leaders had in recent days told Russian media that the two OSCE groups had been freed.
OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said he remained optimistic that negotiations and the help of Ukrainian authorities would soon secure the monitors' release.
"We are quite confident they are in good shape and that they haven't been harmed," Bociurkiw told reporters.
"Obviously, we want to see them come back to base."
The two-month-old special monitoring mission is tasked with reporting rights abuses and helping establish dialogue between the pro-Russian insurgents and Kiev-backed local authorities.
The mission now comprises 296 international and 20 local staff.
But their mission has been treated with suspicion by the rebels throughout strife-torn eastern Ukraine.
Seven OSCE monitors were branded "prisoners of war" and held in the Donetsk region rebel stronghold of Slavyansk for eight days prior to their release under pressure from both the West and Russia on May 3.
An eighth member of that group was set free due to ill-health after two days.
Another group of 11 OSCE observers was briefly detained in Donetsk province on Wednesday. The OSCE said it managed to re-establish contact with them by the end of the night.
Rebels in control of the Lugansk and Donetsk government buildings have declared independence and are seeking a merger with Russia similar to that accomplished by Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea following its seizure by pro-Kremlin troops in March.
Source: Agence France Presse
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