Kyiv envoy says militia holding 400 captives, almost 1,500 are missing
KYIV. April 17 (Interfax) - The Donbas militia are holding about 400 captives, among them 240 servicemen, but these numbers are not final, Ukrainian Choice public organization leader, Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs Viktor Medvedchuk said.
He said in an interview with the journal Korrespondent that 399 people were still being held captive, and 240 of them were servicemen. Besides, 1,450 people are missing. "These figures may still change. A thorough work is being done daily: we are updating data, searching for people and exchanging lists," he underlined.
Medvedchuk said they "had freed 321 servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the National Guard from captivity " since the second half of 2014 when he started to arrange prisoner swaps in collaboration with the Ukrainian Security Service.
Self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) Human Rights Ombudsperson Darya Morozova told the Donetsk news agency on April 10 that not a single POW was left on the DPR territory.
She added that the DPR had detained a number of Ukrainian servicemen on criminal counts.