More OSCE monitors detained

The 57-nation Vienna-based OSCE is currently headed by Swiss President Didier Burkhalter Keystone

Another team of monitors of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has been detained in eastern Ukraine, bringing to eight the number of observers missing.

The Vienna-based OSCE said a group of four international monitors and a Ukrainian language assistant were stopped by armed men in the town of Severodonetsk, 100 kilometres north of Luhansk.

The organisation said it had lost contact with the team at around 7 pm (1600 GMT) on Thursday.

The group is in addition to another missing team – among which there is a Swiss – in the east of the country, which was last heard from on the evening of May 26, the OSCE said.

Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, who chairs the organisation this year, has expressed concern about the deteriorating security situation in eastern Ukraine.

In a telephone conversation on Friday with Ukraine’s president-elect Petro Poroshenko, Burkhalter said the detentions of OSCE staff were unacceptable.

He thanked Poroshenko for the support of the Ukrainian authorities in working towards the “immediate and unconditional release” of the detained staff, according to an OSCE statement on Friday.

Burkhalter said the detention of members of the OSCE monitoring mission was restricting the ability of the observers to carry out their tasks.

There are currently 210 European and 70 local OSCE observers in Ukraine. Their mandate is to facilitate dialogue between the pro-Russian rebels and the government in Kiev.

“Sabotage”

On Wednesday, Burkhalter denounced the kidnapping as “a sabotage of international efforts to help Ukraine survive this crisis”.

He added the observers were doing important work; they form part of a larger team who are on the ground gathering information about the political situation in Ukraine and who also observed the presidential elections on May 25.

Rebels in Eastern Ukraine have declared the Donetsk and Luhansk regions independent from the rest of Ukraine, supported by controversial referendums rejected by Ukraine and the West.

There have been subsequent clashes with Ukrainian forces and appeals by the rebels to join Russia. But Russian President Vladimir Putin has so far ignored that request in the face of Western sanctions and isolation.

Putin has said he would back a peace plan brokered by the OSCE that lays out a plan for ending the violence and creating a political dialogue.

First group ‘kidnapped’?

An insurgent leader in eastern Ukraine has said his group kidnapped the first group of four observers that went missing.

Vyacheslav Ponomarev, who has declared himself mayor of the city of Slovyansk in the eastern Ukranian Donetsk region, told the media on Thursday that the monitors were safe and would be released.

However, it is not clear when they will come free.

Last month, seven OSCE military observers were detained by pro-Russian separatists for more than a week.