CONFLICT AND ARMED VIOLENCE In November, the International Criminal Court in its preliminary examination of the fighting in eastern Ukraine concluded that it amounted to an international armed conflict. Sporadic clashes continued, but the overall situation remained militarily and politically deadlocked. The Russian-backed authorities in Donbas retained near total autonomy. By the end of the year, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine estimated the number of casualties at almost 10,000, including at least 2,000 civilians. Both the Ukrainian authorities and separatist forces in eastern Ukraine engaged in unlawful detentions of civilians they suspected of sympathizing with the other side, as currency for “prisoner exchanges”. All of those known to be secretly detained by Ukrainian forces had been released by the end of the year. A brief flurry of fighting broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Armenianbacked breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region in April. The fighting lasted four days, resulting in small numbers of military and civilian casualties, mutual recrimination and small territorial gains by Azerbaijan. The Turkish authorities continued to conduct heavily militarized operations in numerous urban areas across southeast Turkey, in response to the digging of trenches and erecting of barricades by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) affiliated groups towards the end of 2015. These operations were largely over by June, by which time round-the-clock curfews and the use of excessive force, including heavy weaponry, had resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties, large-scale destruction of residential areas and the forced displacement of up to half a million people. Clashes between the PKK and Turkish forces outside urban areas, and sporadic PKK attacks on government buildings were ongoing at the end of the year as the peace process that broke down in 2015 showed no sign of resuming. The prospect of renewed talks was undermined by a severe crackdown on Kurdish media, civil society and political Amnesty International Report 2016/17 opposition, including through the use of emergency powers adopted in the wake of the July failed coup. 47