(ANSA) - ROME, APRIL 18 - A Crime human rights group has denounced that the Russians forcefully took about 150 children away from Mariupol, 100 of whom were hospitalized, most of them taken from their parents.
"The Russian army forcibly took about 150 children from Mariupol and transferred them to the occupied Donetsk and Russian Taganrog leadership," said OlhaSkrypnyk, head of the Crimean human rights group, Ukrinform reports.
According to Petro Andriushchenko, adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, most of the children, who are not orphans, were taken away without their parents.
The Russians also allegedly took 16 children away from a wellness center in Mariupol.
According to Andriushchenko, the kidnapped children are not orphans.
"The orphans, together with the staff of the orphanage - she recalled - were evacuated from Mariupol on 24 and 25 February", said the head of the Crimean NGO.
As a councilor to the mayor of Mariupol noted, quoted by Ukrinform, some of the "kidnapped children have lost parents to Russia's war crimes", but "either have guardians in unoccupied territories or are under the protection of the state."
In the besieged Mariupol - according to the latest information - about 120,000 civilians remain.
(HANDLE).