Human Rights Activists: Over 17,000 Miners Already Left Occupied Territories of Donbas for Russia

Miners from the occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions have left for work in the Russian Federation, the Eastern Human Rights Group has reported on its Facebook page.

“According to our calculations, 17,300 miners from certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (CADLR) have already left for work in Russia. Before leaving for the Russian Federation, miners obtain a Russian passport so as not to have problems with the migration service,” the statement reads.

According to human rights activists, the mass departure of miners is due to several reasons:

• miners receive wages with delays in the occupied territories;
• extremely low salary, which is impossible to live on (the average salary of miners is USD 250-300);
• the absence of legislation and the impossibility of collecting wage arrears through the court;
• terrible working conditions in mines in the occupied territories.

As human rights activists note, the occupation authorities do not care about the safety of work in mines, therefore, no money is invested in the development of labour protection of miners.

As a reminder, a few days ago, nine miners were killed at Krasny Partizan Coal Mine in the temporarily occupied territory of the Luhansk region. The cause of death was the breakage of the cable at the site, on which the miners descended into the mine. Another 19 people were injured.

The main reasons for the tragedy are considered to be the deterioration of the transport cable and systematic overloads.

Bohdan Marusyak