This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27180103
The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Ukraine crisis: Military observer freed in Sloviansk | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| One of the team of European monitors seized by pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukrainian flashpoint city of Sloviansk has been freed. | |
| The man - reportedly Swedish - was released on medical grounds, a separatist spokeswoman told the BBC. | |
| The eight monitors, who are linked to the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, were detained in Sloviansk on Friday. | |
| Intensive diplomacy has been going on to try to secure their freedom. | Intensive diplomacy has been going on to try to secure their freedom. |
| The observers are from Germany, Poland, Sweden, Denmark and the Czech Republic. | |
| They were shown to the media on Sunday, led into Sloviansk town hall by masked gunmen. | |
| German monitor Col Axel Schneider, who spoke for the group, stressed they were not Nato officers - contrary to claims made by the separatists - and that they were not armed fighters, but diplomats in uniforms. | |
| "We are not prisoners of war. We are the guests of (self-declared Sloviansk) Mayor (Vyacheslav) Ponomaryov, and being treated as such." | |
| Reporters later saw of one of the group - accompanied by three men - get into an OSCE vehicle which then drove away. | |
| Stella Khorosheva, a spokeswoman for Mr Ponomaryov, told Reuters the observer who left was a Swedish national. | |
| "He has a mild form of diabetes and so we decided to let him go," she said. |