Around 3,000 Mariupol civilians are being held in eastern Ukraine prisons, official says

Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine have detained around 3,000 civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol, the country’s human rights chief claimed Thursday. 

Lyudmyla Denysova said on social media that the Ukrainian government is aware of at least two prisons set up in the Donetsk region, one in the regional capital of Donetsk and another in Olenivka, a suburb 12 miles southwest of the city center, according to the Associated Press. 

She claimed that authorities in Kyiv had received reports of people being “tortured, interrogated, threatened with execution and forced to cooperate,” and others disappearing after interrogations.