5,100 children have been deported from Ukraine to the Russian Federation: less than 50 have been returned
Mykhailo Zahorodnii, Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia — FRIDAY, 22 JULY 2022
Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the Russian occupiers have taken 5,100 children to the Russian Federation.
This information has been reported by Daria Herasymchuk, the representative of the President of Ukraine for children's rights and child rehabilitation, live during the national newscast on 22 July.
"Requests continue to be submitted every day and therefore I urge everyone to report cases of child abduction to the National Information Bureau.
This will allow us to start searching for a specific child," she said.
According to Herasymchuk, all children in this list are identified with names and surnames.
Ukraine transfers the collected data to the Red Cross and other international organisations that help to find the location of children.
"Unfortunately, Ukraine does not have access to the occupied territories and the Russian Federation, so we do not ask the Red Cross and other organisations to return them, because they can only carry out search operations and inform us where they are," the representative of the President emphasised.
Abducted children are not only orphans, sometimes they are taken away together with their parents or relatives, or forcibly separated from them.
Herasymchuk shared the story of the return of the 11-year-old boy Sashko, who was in Mariupol with his mother.
The boy and the woman came under fire and had to seek medical help. The Russian military then forcibly relocated them to the occupied territories in Donetsk Oblast.
There, the mother was simply kicked out of the hospital at gunpoint, she is still missing and there is no contact with her.
The boy managed to contact his grandmother and later returned to Ukraine for treatment.
"A total of 46 children have been returned to Ukraine, each time it is a separate special operation, there is no single algorithm and most likely there won't be," Herasymchuk said.
