Mejlis calls on OSCE, UN missions to visit Crimea due to COVID-19 - statement

"The presidium of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People calls on the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) and the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine to visit the Russian-occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol to study the human rights situation on the peninsula, especially in terms of health care and the provision of medical aid in case of illness," the statement reads.

It says that the number of daily coronavirus cases in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol has long exceeded the level that can be provided by existing medical institutions and existing medical staff, with many seriously ill patients being refused hospitalization.

According to the statement, the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea are hiding from the public and international organizations an objective picture of morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19. The medical staff in hospitals are strictly instructed to indicate in the death records one of the patient's comorbidities, without any reference to COVID-19. Information about the epidemiological situation in prisons and the health of illegally detained Crimean political prisoners has been classified.

"The health care institutions and pharmacies of Crimea, temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation, face a constant shortage of the most popular drugs and medicines needed by doctors and their patients to treat COVID-19. Daily analysis of incoming information shows that the main reason for the catastrophic worsening of the epidemiological situation, which threatens to turn into mass mortality of the inhabitants of the occupied Crimea, is the refusal by the Russian Federation as an occupying power to take measures to protect the health and lives of the population of the occupied territory," the statement reads.

The presidium of the Mejlis called on the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, in cooperation with the Government of Ukraine, to take urgent measures to provide quality medical care to the residents of the temporarily occupied Crimea amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of October 27, Ukraine reported 6,677 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 355,601.

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