Number of cars traveling from Crimea to mainland drops significantly – human rights activists

The number of cars traveling from the occupied Crimea to mainland Ukraine has dropped significantly.

This is reported by the monitors of the Crimean Human Rights Group.

The human rights activists link this to the fact that Russia forces the drivers to replace Ukrainian number plates with Russian.

“Earlier, the Crimean taxi drivers took people to Novoalekseevka, to trains. Now, at the Dzhankoy (Chongar) checkpoint, the taxi drivers ask the drivers of cars with Ukrainian registration, who travel to the mainland, to take passenger traveling from Crimea and bring them to Novoalekseevka,” the monitors said.

Buses bring passengers to administrative border only, and the passengers have to cross it on foot.

At the entrance, the Russian customs officers make people to pass the sanitary control. A number of products, particularly meat, is banned from delivering across the border.

According to the human rights defenders, people are forced to wait for control in a narrow corridor at the street, which is surrounded by netting. Sometimes, the waiting time reaches more than half an hour. There were cases where people were kept for two hours.

According to local residents, the Ukrainian control is faster.