Donetsk US national 'trapped' without passport

A US national who was arrested by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine in the summer has been released and is residing without documents in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk.

Suedi Murekezi, 35, was detained on 10 June by Russian proxy forces in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, where he had been living for more than three years.

After spending more than four months in different prisons and basements in Russian-occupied Ukraine, he told the Guardian on Monday that he had been released by the Moscow-backed Donetsk separatists on 28 October.

Murekezi said he had been unable to leave Donetsk because he did not have any identity papers.

"I am very happy to be free. But I don't know what to do next. The Russians never gave me back my passport, and I feel trapped here," Murekezi said in a phone interview from the city of Donetsk. Murekezi spent most of his time in two different jails with a group of mostly foreign fighters, including the British nationals Aiden Aslin, John Harding, Andrew Hill and the aid worker Dylan Healy, who returned to Britain after a prisoner swap in September.

Murekezi and his close friends and relatives said he did not participate in any fighting in Ukraine, where he moved about four years ago, eventually settling in Kherson.

"It became clear early on to the Russian authorities that I had nothing to do with the fighting, but they just kept me in jail anyway," he said.