Residential Institutions must be Evacuated from the ATO

It is imperative to evacuate neuropsychiatric boarding houses and nursing homes from the areas bordering the ATO and to provide their residents with psychological support.

According to the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada on Human Rights, this was the conclusion made by a monitoring group consisting of representatives of the Secretariat of the Commissioner and the NGOs M’ART and Human Rights Information Center. The group visited neuropsychiatric boarding houses, nursing homes, orphanages, and other institutions in Dzerzhinsk, Artemivsk, Krasnyi Liman and Sloviansk. The monitoring visits were carried out within the framework of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM).

The most severe situation is observed In Dzerzhinsk, which is constantly shelled. The inpatient unit of the territorial social service center of Dzerzhinsk has 70 elderly and disabled people. The city has no water supply, which affects the work of the institution and the building’s basement is not fit to be a bomb shelter.

A Dzerzhinsk public boarding school, attended by 327 children, was switched to distance learning after a neighboring building was hit by a shell.

The monitoring group has documented that the 367 residents of Artemivsk neuropsychiatric boarding house are afraid to go outside due to the constant sounds of shelling. In addition, 54 people from Staromikhailivka were evacuated to the boarding house and there is now a shortage of beds, blankets, and sheets. The institution doesn’t have mass transit connection with Artemivsk.

“These people should be immediately evacuated before a shell hits the institution they are at,” said Tetiana Pechonchyk, a member of the monitoring group and head of the Human Rights Information Center.

According to her, people should, if possible, be moved all together because the stress of the move can be exacerbated by the destruction of social ties.

As noted by Olena Temchenko, a member of the Secretariat of the Commissioner on Human Rights, it seems as if the central and regional authorities are not involved in these institutions, which are subject to them. She also noted that many of those who were evacuated are in need of psychological help.

Upon the release of the monitoring visits’ results, Commissioner on Human Rights Valeriya Lutkovska once again appealed to Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to take immediate measures to evacuate the residents and staff of educational, healthcare and social protection institutions to the safe regions of Ukraine. According to the Commissioner, it is these demographics who have found themselves in the most difficult situation.