Ukrainians Scour Rebel-Held City for Vanished Relatives
Olga, a blonde woman in a black-and-white patterned summer dress, stares ahead tearfully as she says: "My son is lost."
With several dozen others, she stands on a patch of grass in front of a wall of sandbags guarding the occupied security service headquarters in the east Ukraine's rebel stronghold of Donetsk.
Every day at 6 pm a crowd gathers at the spot to listen as the rebels read out a list of surnames of those detained.
But many leave without hearing their loved one's name, uncertain in the chaos of the ex-Soviet nation's civil war what their fate might be.
The rebels have introduced their own summary system of justice, detaining people for breaking the curfew or drinking.
The United Nations accuses them of conducting a "reign of fear and terror" that has seen opponents kidnapped, tortured and even killed.
"We have been searching for our son since July 18," Olga said.
She said her 28-year-old son disappeared after he had driven away from work to visit her home.
She said she had no idea what offense he could have committed.
"He wasn't involved in politics.... He could not have been drunk or sworn at anyone or been on drugs or had a weapon."
"His phone is switched off, we don't know anything more. We are looking all over Donetsk," she said.
Her husband stood next to her with a plastic bag full of "missing" posters.
One man who asked not to be named, sat on his own, cradling his cell phone.
"It's my brother. He was taken from his home on June 23," he said
"They tell me nothing. I don't know where he is. I don't know why they took him," he said of his 46-year-old sibling.
"I come every day -- maybe he'll be on the list. I wait just here, I can't find him."
Nearby Alexander Pervushin, 56, is struggling for news of his 29-year-old son Maxim.
"I went to the prosecutor's office and they told me to come here. He's been missing since July 12," Pervushin said.
"You don't know who to turn to any more. There's no police. Wherever you go there's military."
A rebel in camouflage clothing gives some brief information confirming relatives' detentions and the crime they are said to have committed.
Some had simply been caught outside after the 11 pm curfew or without ID.
The rebels also crack down on drinking and drug use.
"Selling (drugs). That's a serious one, very serious," the rebel somberly tells one woman.
"He's sick, he has asthma," she says of her son.
"We will have no drugs in the city," he insists.
The rebels in turn run a missing person show on their television station called Search Service.
One of the show's creators who gave her name as Aleftina Mikhailovna, said those missing were often "alcoholics, drug dealers and the homeless" or victims of crime.
A policeman who was detained by rebels told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity that insurgents sent offenders to the front to build barricades and dig trenches.
The stocky man in his 20s said he was held for 11 days by rebels at the security service headquarters of a town outside Donetsk in July.
"I personally saw people who were detained. It's young women, young men, children," he said.
"They pronounce a sentence. A drug dealer or someone who stole something could get 30 days of hard labor, building barricades or digging trenches."
"The people who were drunk are usually held for three to five days, then they let them out".
Conditions were grim in the cellar of where he was held.
"There are no windows and only one door. The men smoke, it's too stuffy to breathe, and you can't wash."
He said there was a "high turnover" in cells, with between 10 and 18 people sleeping on pallets.
Rebels took away his private car as he was detained, he said.
Asked if he had access to a lawyer he simply smiled at the suggestion.
"How could there be a lawyer? This is a war situation."
"I only got out because I had friends," he said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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