On Friday September 16, 2022, the Russian commissioner for the “
rights of the child
”, Maria Lvova-Belova, announced the arrival in Moscow of 100 children from the separatist republic of Donetsk (DNR).
77 of them arrived by plane after taking off from the border town of Rostov-on-Don and the other 23 had to take the train from the city of Kursk.
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Read alsoWar in Ukraine: “credible accusations” of children forcibly transferred to Russia
Barely arrived on Russian territory, these children aged 3 to 17, who are most often orphans as a result of the war in Ukraine, received Russian citizenship through an expeditious procedure.
They must then undergo “
psychological and social training
” to “
help
” them overcome the trauma of war, before choosing among 3 or 4 families, an adoptive family, explained the Russian authorities.
Not an isolated event
This transfer of children is not an isolated event.
Last May, Maria Lvova-Belov announced that 190,000 Ukrainian children had been transferred from occupied regions in Ukraine to Russia.
On September 8, the UN, through the voice of the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Human Rights, also accused Russia of "
numerous human rights violations
" for having organized a system
of "forced transfers of unaccompanied children to the territory occupied by Russia or to the Russian Federation itself
" with "
triage centres
".
For their part, the Ukrainian authorities have described these forced population displacements as “
genocide against the Ukrainian nation
”.
Dmytro Lubinets, the human rights defender of the Ukrainian Parliament is currently working on the return of children sent to Russia.
51 children would have returned to Ukraine thanks to his work.
Maria Lvova-Belova, the coordinator of the population transfer system, was sanctioned by the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the European Union, before the United States did the same on September 15.
Reacting to these new sanctions, the Russian presidential commissioner for the “
rights of the child
”, explained that the placement in foster families of Ukrainian orphans was a necessary measure for “
their good
”.
In total, counting adults, more than 2.5 million Ukrainians have joined Russian territory, willingly or by force, since the outbreak of the war on February 24, 2022, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
