Inadmissible people cut off from civilization in Zaporizhzhia Airport

The people, who are not allowed crossing the border by the guards of the Zaporizhzhia International Airport, are cut off from civilization.

This is reported by the monitors of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), who visited the airport on January 26 this year.

“Ukraine has certain commitments under the international treaties obliging the state to create decent conditions for accommodation, access to various means of communication, decent lodging, hot meals, etc. for such people,” the Human Rights Information Center correspondent in Zaporizhzhia quotes Andriy Fedoseyev, the representative of the Department for NPM Implementation of the Ombudsperson’s Secretariat, as saying.

The people do not have access to a pay telephone and Internet connection in the departure lounge.

“Such people are denied the opportunity to call from a payphone, recharge a mobile phone, if they need to call their relatives and tell them they will return tomorrow or the day after, as there are no payment terminal, ATM or currency exchange booth in the departure lounge” said the representative of the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights.

The drinking water can be bought in duty free, cafes or taken free of charge in the dirty toilet.

The cafe offers only hot sandwiches and alcoholic beverages. If necessary, people will have to sleep on the iron benches.

There is no shower and room of mother and child in the transit area. According to the schedule, a person may wait up to 17 hours in such circumstances.

The people, who are not allowed to enter Ukraine, are not provided any legal information.

According to the monitors, who studied the documents in the airport, the border guards did not allow 24 people to cross the state border of Ukraine in the airport during 2015. Two people were not allowed to cross the state border in January 2016.

According to Andriy Fedoseyev, the problem of poor support for inadmissible people exists within the country.

“The Zaporizhzhia International Airport is the seventh airport, which we visited over the past year and a half. We see almost the same picture everywhere evidencing that the state does not worry much about supporting inadmissible people,” he said.

Andriy Fedoseyev noted that the issue had not been settled in the administrative and governing documents of the State Border Guard Service and the State Aviation Service.

The official reminds that Ukraine ranks first in the number of applicants to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The majority of these complaints relate to cruel and degrading treatment of people, i.e. the violation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

“Currently, the ECHR considers these complaints with priority. The Government of Ukraine is swamped with the ECHR judgments, according to which it must pay compensation to the victims from the country’s budget. The payments range EUR 5,000-20,000 depending on the severity,” Andriy Fedoseyev said.

The Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights has developed the guidelines for the management of the State Aviation Service and the Border Guard Service of Ukraine. The NPM monitors will visit the Zaporizhzhia Airport and other airports in Ukraine to check how the recommendations of the Ombudsperson are complied with.