Kyiv: More than 30 children deported to Russia during the Russian-Ukrainian war have reportedly been returned to their families. International media also reported that the children were brutally beaten. The media also shared a video of parents receiving their children from the Belarus-Ukraine border.
Last February, about 19,500 children were abducted by the Russian army to Russia and the Russian-occupied Crimea region in the name of going to a two-week summer camp.
Thirteen-year-old Dasha Ruck said she and her twin sister went to Crimea from the Russian-occupied Kherson region during the last war, Reuters news agency reported.
‘They said someone would adopt us and we would have parents. But when they told us to stay in the camp for more days, we started crying,’ Dasha said.
Dasha’s mother, Natalya, also informed that she left for Kramiel through Poland, Belarus and Moscow to receive her children.
But then Russia responded that the children were not kidnapped and were being transported for the safety of the children.
Children’s repatriation operations are being conducted under the leadership of the Ukraine Humanitarian Organization.
Now the fifth rescue operation has been completed. The number of children who were able to return is very, very important. Many children said they lived with rats and cockroaches. The organization has saved 18 children in this way in the past month, Mykola Khuleba, founder of the Save Ukraine humanitarian organization, told Reuters.
Meanwhile, the returned children said that they were treated like animals.
We were treated like animals. We were accommodated in different buildings,’ said Vitaly, one of the children.
At the same time, Al Jazeera reported that many more children are yet to escape.
Earlier, the International Criminal Court had issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin during the Ukraine war.
The court issued a statement that day, suspecting that Putin was involved in the illegal deportation of children living in Ukraine to Russia. In addition to Putin, the warrant was also issued against Maria Alekseevna, the presidential commissioner of Russia’s Children’s Rights Commission.
content highlight: More than 30 children deported from Ukraine to Russia have reportedly returned
