According to the data of the Center for Human Rights “ZMINA” on August 30, 2022, Russia continues kidnapping people in Ukraine to fight popular resistance and intimidation.
Source: Center for Human Rights “ZMINA”
According to the “ZMINA” Human Rights Center, at least 311 enforced disappearances have been recorded in the occupied territories of Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war. The victims are active members of the community. These are volunteers, government officials, cultural figures, and their family members.
It is noted that people in the temporarily-occupied south of Ukraine suffer the most from violent kidnappings.
“The largest number of kidnappings are in the occupied south — at least 119 in the Kherson region and 90 in the Zaporizhzhia region. There are also at least 27 cases in the Kharkiv region. The biggest problem is the lack of information from the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Therefore, the numbers can be much higher.”
According to experts, relatives of the kidnapped can contact the UN working group on enforced disappearances. In cases where a person has been kidnapped because of his human rights, journalistic activities or volunteering, it is worth contacting the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. In the future, these structures should make a corresponding request to Russia. The third rapid mechanism is the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“It is currently impossible to calculate the exact number of such cases in Ukraine. Since the full-scale invasion, the practice of forced disappearances has become one of the widespread methods of intimidating Ukrainian citizens in the newly occupied territories.”
