Since February of this year, Tamara Chernukha, born in 1963, a resident of the Crimean Chornomorske (Ak-Sheikh), has been in detention. She worked as an ambulance paramedic in the settlement for many years.
On February 5, Chernukha was secretly detained in Chornomorske by representatives of the “federal security service” for alleged “high treason”, her exact whereabouts are still unknown.
Since the relatives and colleagues of the missing woman did not know about the detention at the time, worried about the fate of the elderly woman, they called the “police” to check her place of residence, and right during such a “survey” the local “police” received a call from the “management” and ordered them to stop searching for the paramedic.
Later, in response to numerous appeals by relatives to the “prosecutor’s office”, “police” and “FSB”, they received standard replies about the alleged “absence” of Chernukha in Crimean places of detention and about the “absence of a criminal case”.
At the same time, through Chernukha’s colleagues, her relatives were given non-public information that the paramedic was in a “remand prison”, allegedly for “high treason”, and similar information was privately reported by the “police” to neighbors of the detainee and to other residents of the settlement, for which there is relevant evidence.
Tamara Chernukha has significant health problems, and in itself her stay in a “remand prison”, without giving her relatives the opportunity to give her any food and medicines, poses a significant threat to her life and health, and is a form of torture.
The repression against Chernukha has all the elements of an enforced disappearance and a gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as it was reported already to a number of authorized UN bodies and of the OSCE, and to the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as to the Ombudsman of Ukraine.
This fact has been repeatedly discussed at events of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Despite repeated demands for immediate information about the whereabouts and condition of Tamara Chernukha, her enforced disappearance continues, which requires further active action from international organizations and human rights defenders.
