Updated 5:08 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, October 7 (RIA Novosti) – The Kiev government has failed to give clear explanations about the death of an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) worker killed last week during shelling of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
“Several days have passed, but we heard no clear explanations by the Kiev authorities about the circumstances surrounding the death of a member of a prominent international humanitarian organization. This issue is being hushed up. We have also seen no practical steps towards finding and punishing those guilty,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Moreover, numerous international structures, including the European Union, have in their comments turned a blind eye to the fact that the International Red Cross office was located on the territory controlled by self-defense forces and was attacked from positions of Ukrainian troops,” the statement continues.
The ministry has also reiterated its fall for a detailed and unbiased investigation into the incident and urged the Kiev government to stop any shelling of civilian facilities in Donetsk.
On October 2, the ICRC reported that one of its staff, a 38-year-old Swiss national, was killed in Donetsk when a shell landed near the organization's premises. Currently, the IRCR has some 20 staff in Donetsk.
On September 5, a ceasefire was announced following a Contact Group meeting in Minsk, but the opposing sides have accused each other of breaching the truce ever since it was declared. The monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), however, have said that the ceasefire was generally holding.
