Deportation of Ukrainian children to russia: Ombudsman of Ukraine for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets says the real number could reach hundreds of thousands.
The deportation of more than 16,000 Ukrainian children to the russian Federation has been confirmed, and the real number may reach hundreds of thousands.
This was stated by Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, on the air of the national telethon “United News.”
“We have 16,228 confirmed, verified Ukrainian children who were forcibly deported by the Russian Federation. These are children who are on the territory of the Russian Federation and have undergone the deportation process. I can only speculate about the total number, because the verification process is complicated. I can assume that we may be talking about tens or even hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children who were forcibly deported by Russia,” Lubinets said.
Regarding the children in the temporarily occupied territories, Lubinets noted that we are also talking about dozens or even hundreds of children.
He noted that the specificity of international law is that forced deportation begins only when Ukrainian children are transported across the border by the Russian Federation.
“Even if they were forcibly taken to Crimea, the International Criminal Court will not treat it as deportation, because this is Ukraine, Crimea is Ukraine, but as soon as they cross the border, by the actions of the Russian military or the occupation authorities, the deportation procedure begins only then,” Lubinets informed.
The Commissioner for Human Rights noted that it is easier to negotiate with Russia regarding children in the temporarily occupied territories, the main thing is to prove that their direct relatives remain and live in Ukraine. And even in such cases, the occupiers try to counteract this and delay the process in every possible way.
It is more difficult to return those children who have already been taken to the territory of the Russian Federation.
“They realize that each returned child is an additional witness to the war crime of forced deportation of Ukrainian children. This process is not fast and difficult. So far, we have managed to return more than three hundred Ukrainian children, and this process is not over. We are currently working on several new stories of families we are working with, and we expect positive news in the near future,” Lubinets said.
Earlier in January, 125 children illegally taken out of the temporarily occupied territories to russia have already been returned to Ukraine. This was announced during the World Economic Forum in Davos by Daria Gerasimchuk, authorized adviser to the President of Ukraine on children’s rights and child rehabilitation.
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