Updated on 03/26/2023 16:22
Russia is said to have deported thousands of children during its war in Ukraine. An aid organization has now brought 17 abducted children back to their parents.
With a beaming smile, the boy jumps towards his father, the two kiss and hug. Denys Zaporozhenko has not seen his son for more than five months. In October, the ten-year-old and his two older sisters were brought from Ukraine by Russians to the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow. Now an aid organization has managed to bring 17 children back to Kiev.
When the bus with the boys and girls arrives in Kiev, the friends are great. They were separated from their parents for months. Zaporozhenko last saw his children on October 7. They lived in Cherson in southern Ukraine, which was then occupied by Russian troops. When fierce fighting broke out in the port city with the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the father agreed to send his children to an alleged Russian holiday camp in Crimea, far away from the war.
Russian officials “promised to send them to this camp for a week or two,” says Zaporozhenko. “By the time we realized we shouldn’t have done that, it was too late.” The supposed short vacation turned into months of separation. At least he was able to talk to his children on the phone, says the father.
16,000 minors deported to Russia
The non-governmental organization Save Ukraine campaigned for the return of the children. The organization fights once morest the alleged kidnapping of Ukrainian children in Russian-controlled areas. According to Kiev, more than 16,000 minors have been deported to Russia since the Russian invasion, many of whom are said to have been placed in institutions and foster families.
The International Criminal Court last week issued an arrest warrant once morest Russian President Vladimir Putin for illegally deporting Ukrainian children. The Kremlin denies the allegations, claiming it is merely saving children from the horrors of war.
The Russian authorities used “intimidation, manipulation and blackmail” to take possession of the children, says Myroslava Chartschenko, a lawyer for Save Ukraine. “They tell the parents they have an hour to think” and scare them of “American mercenaries who will beat and rape the children.”
Children report political indoctrination
So far, the parents have had to go on the arduous search for their children themselves, says the lawyer. Now, for the first time, Save Ukraine has managed to bring a group of children back together. The organization rented a bus and took some mothers with them. Since they were not allowed to cross the front in eastern Ukraine, they had to make a detour via Poland, Belarus and Russia to pick up the children in Crimea.
Some of the 17 children report political indoctrination in the camp. “If you didn’t sing the Russian national anthem, you had to write down why not. And on New Year’s Day, we were shown Putin’s speech,” says 15-year-old Taissia from Cherson. “Everything was like in normal camps,” says Zaporoshenko’s eleven-year-old daughter Jana. “But when inspectors came from Moscow, we had to sing and dance.”
Inessa Wertosch observed that her son became more serious during the months of separation. “He looks at me and says, ‘Mom, I don’t want to tell you, you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night’.”
Attorney Chartschenko assures that all children are being looked following psychologically. And her organization does “everything so that the children and their parents do not return to dangerous areas”. (AFP/thp)