Ukraine returns 11 children from Russia and occupied territories
19 July 15:01
Ukraine has managed to return 11 more children who were illegally taken to the temporarily occupied territories or to Russia.
This is reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to the Telegram of the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets.
According to him, the return operation took place within the framework of the initiative of the President of Ukraine Bring Kids Back UA.
The Ombudsman’s Office and international partners, including the State of Qatar, which acted as an intermediary, joined in its implementation.
“The youngest child we are returning is 10 years old, the oldest is 17 years old,” Lubinets said.
He also told several stories about the fates of the children who managed to return.
One of them is a 13-year-old girl whose mother was taken prisoner by Russia and released in April 2023.
All this time, the child stayed with her grandmother in the temporarily occupied part of Donetsk region. The girl was constantly looking for an opportunity to go to her mother.
Thanks to the long-term work of human rights activists and international partners, the family was reunited – it was their first meeting since the beginning of the great war.
Another example is five children from one family who were taken to Russia after the outbreak of hostilities in their region.
The parents were deprived of parental rights, and the guardian took the children out of Ukraine. For a long time, nothing was known about their whereabouts.
Later, the children themselves got in touch with their sister, who remained in Ukraine, and expressed their desire to return. Now the whole family is together.
Ukraine continues to work on the return of all illegally deported or displaced children. In total, 1453 children from TOT and Russia have returned home since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
As a reminder, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has been taking Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories. Some of them are illegally adopted in Russia.
