The body of a monitor from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, a U.S. citizen who was killed in a landmine explosion in Luhansk Oblast on April 23, has been brought to government-controlled territory.
According to Dmitry Strutinsky, a Ukrainian member of the Joint Coordination and Control Center, an agency for liaison between the Ukrainian and Russian militaries, a ceasefire was called at the OSCE request in the Pervomaisk-Molodizhne-Popasna zone so that the body could be removed.
The body was transported over the front line at approximately 10 p.m. local time, Strutinsky said.
The explosion, the first deadly incident for the OSCE since its mission started in Ukraine in March 2014, happened at 11:17 a.m. local time on April 23, when one of two OSCE armored vehicles struck a landmine. The vehicles were traveling on a road near the village of Pryshyb in a non-government-controlled part of Luhansk Oblast, some 800 kilometers east of Kyiv.
The U.S. citizen was killed in the resulting explosion and fire. Two more monitors, from Germany and the Czech Republic, were injured and taken to hospital in the city of Luhansk.
The U.S. Department of State said the slain U.S. citizen was a paramedic with the OSCE patrol, but did not reveal the name of the person.
“This death underscores the increasingly dangerous conditions under which these courageous monitors work, including access restrictions, threats, and harassment,” U.S. State Department acting spokesperson Mark Toner said on April 24.
“The United States urges Russia to use its influence with the separatists to allow the OSCE to conduct a full, transparent, and timely investigation.”
Despite the deadly incident, the organization intends to continue fulfilling its mandate in the country, the OSCE’s chief monitor Ertugrul Apakan said in a statement on April 24. He said that he would travel to the Donbas war zone to extend his support to the monitors and “understand the situation better.”
An internal inquiry by the OSCE is expected to reveal more details about the monitor’s death.
The Ukrainian military blamed Russian-backed militants in Luhansk Oblast for the monitor’s death.
“The militants are totally responsible for the tragedy, as the mentioned zone has been under the control of the ‘LNR’ armed gangs since summer 2014,” Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense spokesman Oleksandr Motuzianyk said during a briefing in Kyiv on April 24.
Article 6 of the first Minsk settlement of Donbas conflict signed on September 20, 2014, demands the removal of all mines in frontline areas, and so the tragic incident indicates that the Russian-backed militants are ignoring the Minsk agreements, Motuzyanyk said.
The Ukrainian government wants there to be a full investigation into the deadly event, he added.
Earlier, the Ukrainian military press center in the war zone noted that no ceasefire violations by either of the sides were recorded in the area on the day of the incident.
The Luhansk Oblast department of Ukraine’s SBU security service has opened a criminal case on a terror attack resulting in a fatality, the prosecutor general’s office of Ukraine reported on April 24, noting that a female German OSCE monitor injured in the explosion had been hospitalized with a concussion.
