Reports emerged today that a British medical student, Mohammed El Gasim, aged 21, was released yesterday after being abducted in Donetsk and detained by separatists.

On July 31, photos of El Gasim’s passport, student identity cards and visa were distributed by separatist social media and blogs.

A post containing the photos on a VKontakte page, labelled as “Dispatches from the Novorossiya militia,” said that the documents belonged to “the junta’s mercenaries,” and that more than one Sudanese mercenary with British citizenship had been captured.

Another pro-separatist Facebook page posted the images, saying that the documents belonged to two Sudanese mercenaries posing as students.

On August 2, Pressa Ukraina reported that Said Ismagilov, the Mufti of the Spiritual Directorate of Ukrainian Muslims, had announced that one British student of Sudanese origin had been detained by separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.

Ismagilov said that the student, who he declined to name publicly, had been seized while out with friends in Donetsk. He said that the separatists were planning to use him to claim the presence of NATO fighters in the area.

Today, it was reported by Will Stewart in the Daily Mail that El Gasim was released from captivity on August 4 in Amvrosiivka. He is reportedly in Donetsk at the moment:

A family friend said: ‘He got into an argument because he wasn’t speaking Russian. A rebel patrol picked him up. ‘Then the rebels blogged that his was among the bodies of several “black mercenaries” fighting for the government. ‘The blog showed his passport and said he and the others were all in Ukraine uniforms. ‘But in fact he was alive and was put to work digging trenches. ‘Apparently he was released yesterday morning. But as of late last night, we still had not heard from him.’ It is understood he called his parents early today.

An official from the university at which El Gasim is studying also spoke to Stewart:

‘This student happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. ‘I spoke to the young girl who witnessed it. It was in the street near a shop when one Russian man did not like it that our student spoke English. ‘He said something like – “this is Russian area, it is only allowed to speak Russian here, no English”. ‘Our students are normally very quiet and hate conflicts. I am sure he was not the first who attacked, but at the end it there was a small fight, and somebody called the Donetsk People’s Republic (as the self-styled rebels call their region) people to sort it out. ‘They took away our student and later called to say that he was arrested for two weeks for hooliganism. ‘I know that he spent these two weeks somewhere outside Donetsk, doing some digging work for the DPR. ‘On Monday, we got a phone call from DPR that he was released. ‘This is all we know, our boy is somewhere there in the streets, and he does not have a mobile to call us. ‘We have told about him to all who can help.’ The university official said she is desperately trying to get back to the city to help find him. ‘There is no safe route now. I must find a way to get there. I hope our boy will get help from somebody.’

The article also notes that separatist military leader Igor Girkin, also known as Strelkov, had mentioned finding and shooting “mercenaries of the negro race” at a recent press conference:

Strelkov – accused by Kiev of being a Russian intelligence colonel – in a note to journalists wrote: ‘The commander of the local unit of the Militia is prepared to provide to you, for the purpose of shooting video, the corpses of the killed [mercenaries]. They still lie untouched on the battlefield – specifically so that they can be captured on video. How you manage to make it there is your own concern; however, in this case, I’m providing you with the information.’ However, no images of such corpses were seen and university sources insisted that as of yesterday the student was alive though ‘lost’ in Donetsk.

The comment may also have referred to the abduction of several Nigerian students by separatists last month. Efforts are reportedly under way to negotiate their release, according to Andrei Lysenko of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council.