Violent "escape": Is Russia abducting Ukrainian children and young people?
Created: 04/22/2022, 09:38
By: Tom Offinger
Every day, the war in Ukraine forces thousands of people to flee, many of them children.
Ukraine is now raising serious allegations against the Russian armed forces.
Kyiv/Munich - The war in Ukraine has been raging for more than eight weeks now.
While President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his compatriots are doing everything they can to defend their country, the Russian army is now advancing more aggressively, especially in the Donbass region.
Millions of people have fled as a result of the war. Many find shelter in neighboring countries to the west, but a few Ukrainians are also drawn to Russia, often against their will.
Kyiv is now raising serious allegations against Russia.
War in Ukraine: Russia abducts Ukrainian children
As
The Kyiv Independent
reports on Twitter, a group of Ukrainian youths have been forcibly taken to Russia.
The children, aged 14 to 15, are said to come from the region around the cities of Lugansk and Donetsk - the area in eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.
The information comes from Lyudmyla Denisova, who serves as the Ukrainian parliament's human rights commissioner.
Denisova recently referred to UN figures on Ukrainian television (April 20) and explained that around 550,000 Ukrainians, including 121,000 children, had been kidnapped to Russia during the war.
Denisova also criticized the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which she accused of collaborating with Russia in this matter: "The International Red Cross is not fulfilling its mandate, I'm sure of it."
The basis for Denisova's allegations is the ICRC's announcement that it would open a branch in the southern Russian region of Rostov.
There, the Red Cross wants to help Ukrainian refugees who, according to Kiev, were forcibly transported to Russia.
The ICRC firmly denied the allegations: “The ICRC never helps organize or carry out forced evacuations.
We would not support any operation contrary to the will of the people and against international law."
The only goal is to "alleviate the suffering of the people affected by the armed conflict."
War in Ukraine: allegations of abduction have been known for some time
It is currently not possible to say with certainty whether the allegations against the Russian side are actually true.
However, there were already reports at the end of March of violent kidnappings of Ukrainian children.
Britain's Independent
newspaper
on March 22 referred to a statement by the Ukrainian government that more than 2,380 children were said to have been "evacuated" from the contested Donbass region to neighboring Russia.
Similar reports also came from the embattled port city of Mariupol.
There was no official confirmation at the time.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense also tweeted that Russia was "evacuating" orphaned children and preparing a law that would make them faster and easier for Russian families to adopt.
(to with afp)