The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has launched an urgent procedure to protect the rights of around 100 Ukrainian citizens who have been stranded for months at the Georgian border after being deported from Russia.
The interim measures were announced on Thursday following the application of Rule 39, which allows for urgent interim measures in cases where there is a threat of irreparable harm to a person’s health or life and where domestic legal remedies have been exhausted.
The court has requested that by 6 August, Georgia and Ukraine provide detailed information on the exact location of the applicants, their health risks, the conditions in detention, the access to assistance, the possibility of returning to Ukraine, and what actions the Ukrainian authorities are taking to ensure their citizens’ right of entry.
The Ukrainian nationals have been living in unsanitary conditions inside an unfinished customs terminal on the Georgian side of the border, without basic utilities, for several months. Food, water, and medical assistance have been provided by volunteer organisations as opposed to the Georgian authorities.
According to the Civic Solidarity Platform, a coalition of civil society organisations from OSCE countries, Russian authorities are deporting Ukrainian nationals who refused to accept Russian citizenship in occupied territories, leading to an increasing number of people stranded at the Upper Lars border checkpoint with Georgia.
On 15 July, Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that the individuals had been denied entry due to criminal records and invalid documents.
According to the civil society organisation Protection of Prisoners of Ukraine, several of those detained at the border are seriously ill or have disabilities. One of them, a 61-year-old former prisoner who had been transferred to Russia’s Krasnodar region from a penal colony in Ukraine’s Kherson region after suffering a stroke, is partially paralysed and has not received medical attention.
The ECHR application comes just after the Upper Lars border checkpoint between Russia and Georgia was closed on Thursday evening due to a landslide threat warning. All personnel and civilians at the checkpoint, including the Ukrainian nationals awaiting entry, were evacuated. During the evacuation, the Ukrainians reportedly stood for more than five hours in the back of a truck without access to food or water, according to representatives of the organisation Tbilisi Volunteers.
Volunteers attempted to bring food and water to the Ukrainians after their evacuation, but access to the checkpoint area remained blocked. The volunteers questioned why the evacuated individuals had not been transferred to a migrant reception centre.
Weeks ago, some of the Ukrainians at the border self-harmed in protest against their conditions, including one individual who reportedly slit his own throat. According to reports, these acts of desperation failed to attract a response from the authorities.
On 26 July, the Civic Solidarity Platform sent an appeal to the UN Secretary-General, calling for diplomatic pressure on the Georgian authorities and the use of emergency procedures under international law in response to the situation at the border.
Elizaveta Chukharova
