KYIV: Ukraine on Tuesday accused Russian forces of detaining some 600 people, mainly journalists and pro-Kyiv elements in the southern region of Kherson, which Moscow’s military now holds in its grip.
“According to our information, some 600 people are ... being held in specially converted basements in the region of Kherson,” said Tamila Tacheva, the Ukraine presidency’s permanent representative in the Crimea, the peninsula to the south of Kherson which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Tacheva said the bulk of those being held were “journalists and militants” who organized “pro-Ukrainian gatherings” in Kherson (city) and the region around it after it was occupied by Russian forces in the wake of the invasion launched in late February.
“According to our information, they are being held in inhuman conditions and are victims of torture,” Tacheva added without giving further details.
Some Ukrainians held in the Kherson region — civilians but also detained combatants — have been sent to jails in Crimea, she added.
Straddling the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, the Kherson region was home to around a million people before the invasion. However, thousands have fled the key port on the Dnipro River since the Russians targeted the city, which became the first major urban center to fall in the first week of March.
Russia holding 600 Ukrainians at Kherson, Kyiv says
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Russia holding 600 Ukrainians at Kherson, Kyiv says
- The bulk of those being held were "journalists and militants" who organised "pro-Ukrainian gatherings" in Kherson
- "According to our information, they are being held in inhuman conditions and are victims of torture," Tacheva added
UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza
- In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
- Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
