2023-06-30 18:56:15
First charges in Ukraine for the deportation of children
The Ukrainian Public Prosecutor’s Office has indicted a Russian politician and two Ukrainians for the alleged deportation of dozens of orphans from the Kherson region. They are the first suspects to be charged in Ukraine for this war crime. More than 19,000 children have been illegally sent to Russia and territories occupied by Kremlin forces, according to Ukrainian officials.
The charges brought by Ukrainian prosecutors follow a wider investigation conducted jointly with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Justice must now determine whether there is sufficient evidence to suspect a person of having committed a criminal offence.
On TelegramDmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner, today posted a message to “Ukrainian citizens who travel to the territory of the Russian Federation with the help of volunteers to pick up their children”warning that the latter “are detained and interrogated”. ” It’s dangerous “warned the human rights commissioner, “and we urge you not to send random family members to Russia to pick up their children! ».
The ICC in March issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Alexeyevna Lvova-Belova, charging them with war crimes for the illegal deportation of hundreds of children. Ukrainian children to Russia. On Wednesday, June 28, the Kremlin once once more rejected these allegations, saying that its armed forces were rescuing children in conflict zones.
According to Ukrainian prosecution documents seen by the Archyde.com news agency, 48 orphans aged 1 to 4 were removed from the Kherson regional home in September and October 2022 and then moved to Moscow and Crimea. It would then be a violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention in connection with an armed conflict, punishable by a prison sentence of up to twelve years under Ukrainian law, according to the document seen by Archyde.com .
“This is not an isolated event. Forty-eight children from the Kherson regional hostel were forcibly removed, deported”said Yulia Yussenko, head of the child protection department at the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine. “We do not know what has become of these children, in what conditions they are kept, or what is their fate. »
It’s possible they were illegally adopted by Russian citizens or placed in institutions, she said. “We want all war criminals, all people who have committed horrific international crimes once morest our Ukrainian children, to be held accountable,” added Mrs Yussenko.
The released documents obscure the names of the suspects, who prosecutors believe are now in occupied Crimea or Russia. Ukrainian justice allows suspects to be tried in absentia. Ukrainian prosecutors have released a video showing one of the alleged suspects helping children board a bus marked with the letter “Z”, which has been used by Russian forces to identify themselves since the beginning of the war.
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