Ukraine has no access to remaining eight war prisoners transferred to Hungary – ombudsman for human rights
Ukraine did not yet receive access to the remaining eight prisoners of war transferred to Hungary, Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on live television on June 22.
The ombudsman also reported that the International Committee of the Red Cross, which should be mediating such a transfer based on international law, was not notified about the transfer.
We are trying to establish contact with eight prisoners of war. We know where they are. We do not understand why Ukrainian diplomats have not been allowed to visit them, Lubinets said.
In fact, they are in isolation. They have a limited circle of communication. The phones they were given to communicate with relatives were taken from them. We know that relatives have come to some of them. We don't know how the communication took place.
Lubinets had a meeting with the head of the ICRC mission in Ukraine, asking whether there was any information from Hungary or Russia about the transfer of 11 prisoners of war of Ukrainian forces from Russia to Hungary.
The answer was: we learned about it from public channels when this information appeared in the media, Lubinets said.
He noted that a person is legally considered a prisoner of war when he or she is on the territory of a country of one of the parties to an international military conflict. As Russia transferred them to Hungary, they are not automatically considered such.
On June 21, Lubinets commented that Hungary's acts regarding the POWs constitute a breach of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention.
On June 8, the Russian Orthodox Church announced that it had handed over to Hungary a group of 11 Ukrainian captives of "Zakarpattia origin" at Budapest's request. Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén later confirmed the transfer.
The Hungarian and Russian sides did not inform the Ukrainian government of their negotiations. Therefore, Ukraine called the Hungarian Chargé d'Affaires and asked for detailed information about Ukrainian citizens and immediate access to the consul.
On June 19, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry demanded immediate consular access to the POWs. According to the ministry, they were kept in isolation without access to open sources of information and were unable to communicate with relatives without "third parties" presence.
On June 20, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry informed that three out of 11 POWs had been returned home, and the government continues to work to retrieve the rest of the group.
