Civilians complain to the OSCE about the militants who make them stay up to 3 days at checkpoints

Civilians in the Donbass are dissatisfied with the situation on the line of delineation, where militants force them to stay up to three days. This is stated in the report of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission as of April 22.

The SMM continued to monitor the situation of civilians at entry-exit checkpoints.

“On April 21, at a checkpoint in Marinka (government-controlled, 23km south-west of Donetsk), a group of about 20 people (mixed gender and age) who were waiting for a bus to travel towards non-government-controlled areas blocked the SMM’s path and expressed frustration that no bus had yet arrived from non-government-controlled areas to pick them up. Some of the pedestrians told the SMM that they had been waiting for two hours for a bus to arrive, adding that it was not the first time. The SMM saw private taxis offering transportation to people for 200 Rubles (public bus fare is reportedly 70 Rubles)”, - the report says.

At 09:45 on April 21, at a checkpoint on road H15 east of Kreminets (non-government-controlled, 16km south-west of Donetsk), a group of people (mix gender, aged 40-70) complained to the SMM about long waiting hours and that only five-ten cars were allowed to go through every hour. Some added that they had already been waiting since 05:30 that morning. An armed man at the checkpoint told the SMM that the delays were due to the lack of people supervising the checkpoint. At the time, the SMM saw 220 cars, two minibuses, nine buses and 100 pedestrians in a queue to travel towards government-controlled areas, and 80 cars, six minibuses and three buses queuing in the opposite direction.

“At a checkpoint near Olenivka (non-government-controlled, 23km south-west of Donetsk), five people (mixed gender, aged in their fifties and sixties) blocked the SMM’s passage and said that they had been waiting for three days without being able to travel towards government-controlled areas. Several other people who were waiting along a queue of cars also said that they had been waiting for long hours to pass”, - the Mission reported.