DISINFO: The OSCE mission ignored wounding of three children in Donetsk
SUMMARY
The OSCE special monitoring mission refused to inspect four civilians, including three children, who suffered during the shelling of Donetsk. Representatives of the OSCE SMM were invited to examine the victims and the scene, but they refused under the pretext of a ban on visits to hospitals. Thus, they ignored “their direct mission to record all facts of ceasefire violations without exception.”
RESPONSE
A recurring narrative misrepresenting the ceasefire violations in Eastern Ukraine and the response of international organisations, like OSCE, to these. On the evening of 4 May, at 20:30, the SMM received information that three children (girls, aged 7-10) and a man (in his mid-fifties) sustained injuries due to shelling in Oleksandrivka (non-government-controlled area, 20km south-west of Donetsk), according to one of the recent OSCE reports. The Mission has spoken to two parents of the injured children, who said that their daughters had been playing inside the house on the afternoon of 4 May when they were injured by shrapnel from an explosion nearby. "Two members of the medical staff at hospitals in Donetsk city refused to provide the SMM with further information about the injured civilians without permission from senior members of the armed formations," the report says. According to another OSCE report from 25 May, Mission’s freedom of movement on the ground is continuously being restricted. Earlier, the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and the Trilateral Contact Group, Ambassador Heidi Grau, stated that it is unacceptable to anyhow restrict access to the OSCE SMM that, "in accordance with its mandate, covers the entire territory of Ukraine, including for the purpose of monitoring and verification of compliance with the ceasefire." The Ambassador also urged the parties of the Minsk Agreements "to exert their utmost efforts in order to agree on and reaffirm a comprehensive and sustainable ceasefire.” Recently, UNICEF called for all parties to the conflict in eastern Ukraine to commit to a ceasefire, as an increase in shelling has resulted in numerous child casualties and damaged schools since the beginning of the year. Read similar cases: "Europe tells the OSCE observers when to ignore shelling in Donbas", "The West is using OSCE to fuel terrorism in Tajikistan".