Excerpt from ‘Latest from OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine based on information received as of 11 September 2015‘
The overall situation observed by the SMM in the Donetsk region remained calm. From its position at the Joint Centre for Control and Co-ordination (JCCC) observation post at the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (“DPR”)-controlled central railway station (8km north-west of Donetsk city centre), the SMM recorded 44 explosions. The SMM assessed 33 explosions and five airbursts accompanied by bursts of heavy-machine-gun and small-arms fire as an exchange between “DPR”-controlled Spartak (9km north of Donetsk) and government-controlled Ventsvol (11km north-west of Donetsk).
At the Ahat Jami Mosque in “DPR”-controlled Kuibyshivskyi district (8km north-west of Donetsk) the SMM met the head of the Muslim community in Donetsk, the Imam of the mosque and six worshippers (male aged 40- 70) who said they do not have any problems with other communities in the neighbourhood. They said the main dome of the mosque was damaged by shelling on 26 June and the fence and women’s section of the mosque were damaged by shelling on 5 and 6 August. The SMM observed a direct hit to the dome, many damaged and missing windows, and impacts of shrapnel on the interior and exterior walls of the mosque. The interlocutors said they had received construction materials to repair the mosque from the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, but had postponed repair works until the end of the conflict as the mosque had been shelled five times between May 2014 and 6 August 2015.
In the Luhansk region, the overall situation observed by the SMM remained calm, with explosions recorded in government-controlled Trokhizbenka (33km north-west of Luhansk) and Novotoshkivka (53km north-west of Luhansk). The SMM assessed the explosions as on-going Ukrainian Armed Forces troop rotation training…
Read also:
Ahat Jami Mosque damaged by shelling close to the Donetsk airport
Photo story on Demotix, July 11, 2015:
Ahat Jami Mosque is located in the Kuibyshivs´kyi district, 500 meters from the destroyed Donetsk airport. The Mosque’s damaged is from shelling during combat between Donbass separatists [sic] and the Ukrainian army. Some locals still come to prayer there.
From the Religious Information Service of Ukraine, June 2012:
The official opening of the Ahat Jami Mosque in Donetsk was held on September 3, 1999. It was the first mosque built in the Donbas since the end of the Soviet Union. Later mosques were built in Torez (2000), Shahtarsk (2001), Sverdlovsk (2002), Alchevsk (2003), Horlivka, Stakhanov, Mariupol (2007), Anthracite, Brianka and Lugansk (2010).
View:
Short documentary film on the Amat Jami Mosque in Donetsk (Arabic language)
