MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti) – The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has lost contact with members of its Luhansk-based team, the Organization for Security and Cooperation said Friday.
“The team was stopped in the town of Severodonetsk (100km north of Luhansk) by armed men,” according to the statement published on OSCE official website
The team consists of four international SMM members, as well as one Ukrainian language assistant travelling in two vehicles.
The detained Luhansk-based team is in addition to the one currently missing in the country’s east, consisting of four internationals, that was last heard from on late May 26.
The press office of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic denied Thursday reports that a group of four OSCE monitors were detained in the city. A spokesman said four monitors, including one Russian, decided to spend the night there due to a curfew.
On Monday, the OSCE said that it had lost contact with a team of four international members of the Special Monitoring Mission on a routine patrol in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Slaviansk people’s mayor Vyacheslav Ponomaryov said that the monitors were detained by federalists, who found the group’s equipment suspicious, adding that «they are all right.» The monitors were being held in the town of Makiivka in Donetsk region, he said.
The self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics held referendums on self-determination on May 11, with over 90 percent of voters supporting greater autonomy.
