People who identified themselves as Right Sector representatives have not allowed a humanitarian truck convoy of the Rinat Akhmetov charity fund to enter areas of the Donetsk region uncontrolled by Ukraine, SCM Group communications director Natalia Yemchenko said.
“We have been denied entry again today. On the same road. The same 21 trucks. They did not even look at the thoroughly prepared documents and the content of the trucks (…) That was Right Sector [at least, the armed people in camouflage uniforms identified themselves as such],” Yemchenko wrote on Facebook on Dec. 17.
In her words, reporters “were not just prohibited to take photos but even had to stand at gunpoint.”
The SCM Group communications director said the incident happened at the checkpoint “we had been unable to cross for three days.”
The main idea of the people who denied entry to the cargo was the following: “Food will not be allowed to reach cities uncontrolled by Ukraine. None. Neither commercial nor humanitarian. That can be done only with a written permit personally signed by the president,” she said.
Twenty-one humanitarian trucks of the Rinat Akhmetov fund routed to militant-controlled territories in Donbas were due to pass through a checkpoint on the administrative border between the Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions near the village of Iskra in the Donetsk region on Dec. 16 evening. The checkpoint is not subordinated to the army operation staff. It is manned by fighters of volunteer battalions only.
The trucks were examined by specialists of the OSCE and the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. They are carrying macaroni, flour, vegetable oil, cereals and sugar.
The volunteers will not let humanitarian cargo reach militant-controlled territories in Donbas until captives are released, Samopomich (Self Reliance) party deputy, Donbas battalion commander Semen Semenchenko said.
“Humanitarian convoys will not be let pass to terrorists until prisoners are released. The Donbas battalion will do so in the Luhansk region. We will continue to help Kryvbas, Dnepr, Right Sector and Aidar in the Donetsk region,” he wrote on Facebook on Dec. 16 evening.
The parliamentarian claimed that the volunteers had lately blocked the travel of 40 humanitarian trucks. He did not say where that had happened.
