OSCE observers stop work in Luhansk due to security issues
KYIV. June 11 (Interfax) - A group of observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) has stopped monitoring in Luhansk because of the security issues in the city.
"In Luhansk the situation remained tense. Due to security measures the SMM did not monitor its area of responsibility," the mission said in a report posted on the OSCE website.
A spokesperson for the Mission told Interfax that the OSCE observers are still working in Luhansk, though constantly mindful of the security situation there. What the report says is that it is precisely for the reasons of security that the Mission is unable to conduct monitoring. The mission would not say whether the monitoring of the situation in Luhansk has now resumed.
With regard to Donetsk there have been "no substantial changes" in the security situation, the report says.
"The SMM gathered further information on the situation in Slovyansk through telephone calls with regular interlocutors in the town, interviews with returning journalists and an examination of their recent photographs," said the authors of the report.
The OSCE stated earlier that its Special Monitoring Mission will continue work in Ukraine but its observers in the eastern regions will be re-grouped because of the security situation.
Two groups of OSCE observers are currently held captive by the militia in the breakaway republics of southeastern Ukraine. The first group consisting of Swiss, Estonian, Turkish and Danish nationals went missing in the Donetsk region on May 26. Contact with the second four-member group was lost in the Luhansk region on May 29.