Ukraine denounces that more than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia

The crimes against children were at the center of the third and last day of the The international conference “United for Justice” , in which prosecutors and justice officials discussed the creation of mechanisms to prosecute Russian crimes in Ukraine. Ukrainian Deputy Prosecutor General, Viktoria Litvinova, revealed the situation. that there are more than 2,500 ongoing investigations related to war crimes committed against childrenby Russian forces.

At least 462 children have been killed, 931 have been injured and 13 have been victims of sexual violence strong> since the beginning of the invasion, said Litvinova, who warned that the however the true scale of these crimes is still unknown.

According to Litvinova, Russian forces have further deported some 16,000 Ukrainian minors to Russiaor to territories controlled by Moscow. and explained He said that ensuring their return is very complicated and that only 307 of them have returned to Ukraine to date.

Forcible deportation of thousands of children

According to the journalist Oksana Kovalenko, from the Ukrainian media outlet 'Babel', at one of the round tables, watched the video of the journalist. A video in which one of them, Sasha, 12 years old and originally from the coastal city of , told their story.Mariúpol. Sasha was separated from his mother, Snezhana, during the as & iacute; This was called the 'filtration' process that all residents of the Russian-taken city had to undergo to determine their ideological positioning.

Sasha was told He said that “his mother didn't want to take care of him anymore” and he was transported to the Donetsk area.under Russian control. After a month, he managed to He will contact his grandmother by phone, in territory under Ukrainian control, and, finally, return, although he still does not know what to do. It has happened with her mother.

Leak processes and summer camps

Adviser to the Ukrainian president on issues of children's rights, Darya Gerasymchuk , he explained. The Russians use five scenarios to deport Ukrainian children. Thus, apart from When children are separated from their parents during 'filtration' processes, they take advantage of the occasion when parents die or lose custody. They also take children who were already in orphanages or create “unbearable conditions” to force families to consent to having their children moved to summer camps” in Russia where to be safe.

Gerasymchuk stressed that the actions of the Russian authorities in this regard are not arbitrary. “The Russians are doing everything they can to prevent the children from being reunited with their families. They immediately take away their phones and don't allow them to report where they are. This makes it very difficult.” find these children,” he said. “Our goal now is to stop the forcible removal and deportation of children. For this we need international assistance,” he concluded.