The United Nations' Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called on Kiev to investigate alleged human rights violations during the "civil blockade" of the Crimean peninsula, the TASS news agency reported Thursday, citing a UN report on the situation in Ukraine.
"The blockade was organized by activists who illegally acted as law enforcement authorities," the document reads. The Ukrainian government should consider the report and "arrest those who committed the violations."
The blockade was lifted in December last year following a government order, but its participants still maintain makeshift roadblocks, though they ''do not interfere with traffic."
"There is still tension between local citizens and blockade supporters," the report says. "People form self-defense groups to protect themselves from assaults that are allegedly made by the blockade organizers."
A power outage that hit the peninsula in November last year combined with a food embargo "led to serious consequences for some people, especially those with reduced mobility and low incomes," according to the document.
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