David Miliband's aid organisation forced out of eastern Ukraine

Staff from the International Rescue Committee loaded onto a bus by masked gunmen and driven out of separatist controlled territory after rebels' secret police accuse them of espionage

David Miliband, President of the International Rescue Committee

An aid organisation headed by David Miliband, a former Labour Party politician, has been forced out of Donetsk after pro-Russian separatistsraided their office and detained staff at gunpoint for several hours.

Staff from the International Rescue Committee, which has been operating in war-torn eastern Ukraine for several months, were loaded onto a bus by masked gunmen and driven out of separatist controlled territory after the rebels' secret police accused them of espionage.

“Information received by the ministry of state security demonstrates the “false bottom” of this organisation’s activities,” said Maria Petrova, a spokesman for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic’s Ministry of State Security (MGB), in a statement posted online.

“The leadership of the republic and the MGB have decided to halt and ban further work of the International Rescue Committee in the republic, to deport foreign staff to Ukraine and ban them from entering the DNR in future.”

Charged with counter intelligence and internal security, the MGB boasts an unknown number of fighters as well as plain clothes investigators and enjoys considerable power over other “ministries” and armed factions that make up the separatist army.

Their charges against the IRC included the claim that several American employers had worked in front line areas where they gathered information on the deployment of troops.

Pro-Russia militants near the eastern Ukrainian city of Starobeshevo in Donetsk

The rebels accused the aid workers of making contact with various DNR officials in a bid to “gather information”.

Ms Petrova also accused US and EU citizens employed with the group of entering separatists territory without permission, failing to provide contracts to locally hired staff, and refusing to pay tax to the rebel authorities.

The separatist authorities provided no proof that the aid workers were spies. Life News, a pro-Kremlin news agency with close ties to the Russian security services, claimed a raid of the group’s office had revealed files containing passport details of local residents, electronic eavesdropping equipment, and 500,000 Ukrainian hryvnia (about £15,000) in cash.

A spokeswoman for the New York-based aid group said: “We currently are not confirming reports regarding our operations in Ukraine. I do want to reiterate that, as an independent humanitarian organization, the IRC’s work is entirely devoted to humanitarian purposes.”

The IRC originally announced the deployment of an “emergency field team” to eastern Ukraine in February after Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president, agreed to a ceasefire at Franco-German brokered peace talks in Minsk.

It was one of several international aid agencies working to distribute aid and medical assistance in separatist-held areas of the country, including Medicines Sans Frontiers, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the Czech agency People in Need (PIN).

The IRC was founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein and says it currently operates in over 40 countries. Its website says its goal it to provide emergency aid and long term assistance to people affected by “the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.” David Miliband became president and CEO of the New York based organisation in 2013.

By Roland Oliphant