By Edith M. Lederer Associated Press
Nearly two-thirds of Ukraine's children have been forced to leave their homes in the six weeks since the Russian invasion, and the United Nations has verified the deaths of 142 minors, although the true figure is almost certainly much higher. , as reported by Unicef on Monday.
Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF's director of emergency programs who has just returned from Ukraine, said it is "unbelievable" that 4.8 million of Ukraine's 7.5 million children have been displaced in such a short time.
He added that it is something he has never seen before in his 31 years of humanitarian work.
"They have been forced to leave everything behind: their homes, their schools and often their families," Fontaine told the United Nations Security Council.
"I've heard stories of the desperate measures parents are taking to get their children to safety, and of children saddened that they can't go back to school."
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Ukraine's ambassador to the UN Sergiy Kyslytsya said that Russia has taken more than 121,000 children out of Ukraine and reportedly put forward an initiative to simplify and speed up adoption processes for orphans and even children who have parents or other children. relatives.
He added that most of the children were removed from the besieged city of Mariupol and taken to the eastern region of Donetsk and later to the Russian city of Taganrog.
Fontaine stated that UNICEF has heard the same reports, but added that "we still don't have the access that we need to be able to investigate and verify and see if we can help."
He also noted that 2.8 million Ukrainian children have been displaced within the country and another 2 million are already in other nations.
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At the same time, he added, almost half of the estimated 3.2 million Ukrainian children who remain at home "could be at risk of not having enough food", and that the most serious situation is for those who live in besieged cities such as Mariupol.
Fontaine stated that school closures affect the education of 5.7 million young children and 1.5 million higher education students.
"Hundreds of schools and educational facilities have been attacked or used for military purposes. Others serve as shelters for civilians," he said.
A refugee girl waits in line after escaping the war in Ukraine, on April 10, 2022, at a border crossing in Medyka, Poland.Sergei Grits/AP
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The council also heard from Sima Bahous, executive director of UN Women, who recently returned from Moldova, a country that hosts some 95,000 Ukrainian refugees.
Bahous said her agency is hearing accusations of rape and sexual violence with increasing frequency.
He assured that the Moldovan government and the border police are also extremely concerned about the risk of human trafficking, in particular young women and adolescents unaccompanied by an adult.
"The combination of mass displacement with a huge presence of conscripts and mercenaries, and the brutality shown against Ukrainian civilians, has raised all the red flags," he said.
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The Ukrainian ambassador said that his country's prosecutor's office is currently investigating a case in the kyiv region in which a Russian soldier is accused of murdering a resident and subsequently repeatedly raping his wife inside their home.
He said that the alleged assailant has already been identified.
Kyslytsya said the General Prosecutor's Office, in cooperation with investigative agencies and health institutions, is also implementing "a special mechanism" to document cases of sexual violence by Russian soldiers.
The Security Council session on the impact of war on women and children was convened by the United States and Albania.
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Both nations, as well as Ukraine and other members of the Council, attacked Russia for creating the alarming situation for women and children, accusations that Russian Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky flatly rejected.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that when men like Russian President Vladimir Putin "start wars, women and children are displaced," injured, raped and mistreated, and killed.
"Since the start of Russia's unprovoked war against Ukraine, Russia has bombed orphanages and maternity hospitals," he said.
"We have seen mass graves filled with dead children one on top of the other."
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Albanian ambassador Ferit Hoxha accused Russia of committing "unspeakable crimes" every day, including burning civilians, dumping their bodies in mass graves, shooting at parks with playgrounds, premeditated attacks on schools, and causing suffering to all Ukrainians, especially women and children.
"In their normal life, children draw their parents, houses and trees. The Russian war has made Ukrainian children draw bombs, tanks and weapons," Hoxha said.
The ambassadors of the United States, Albania and many other countries highlighted the discovery of bodies, some of them with their hands tied behind their backs, in the town of Bucha, on the outskirts of kyiv, after the withdrawal of Russian troops, as well like the missile attack that killed 52 people, mostly women and children, at a train station in Kramatorsk.
Hoxha noted that the missile had "a sick signature: 'For our children'" inscribed on it.
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Polyansky blamed "Ukrainian Nazis" for the civilian deaths in Bucha and the attack on the Kramatorsk station, which he described as "a classic false flag operation."
He accused Ukraine and its public relations experts, as well as the West, of promoting "falsehoods and propaganda" as part of an "information war against Russia."
"That war is as intense as military operations on the battlefield," he said.
Tariq Ahmad, Britain's minister to the UN who chaired the meeting, responded that Russia is once again trying to divert attention from what is happening on the ground "by what can only be described as quite unusual statements, and even lies." ".
"However, what is true, what is a fact, is that the Russian attacks against civilians and residential areas have been barbaric," he said.