Ukraine managed to bring 128 children back after so many had been deported
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been going on for almost a year now. And the Ukrainian people are suffering. But there has been a small silver lining; 128 children who had been deported by the Russians have been brought back to Ukraine to be reunited with their families.
Kidnapped
Over 11.000 Ukrainian children have been kidnapped by Russians. According to AP News, the children get taken from Ukraine under the premise that their parents don’t want them anymore. But the truth is that their parents or guardians get separated from them while trying to escape the cities. The children are then used for propoganda and adopted by Russian families to grow up as Russian children. In May last year, Russian President Putin signed a bill that would make it easier for Russian families to adopt children from Ukraine. Wayne Jordash, a humanitarian lawyer based in Ukraine, told ABC News: “The removal of children is one of the specified acts which are necessary to be established in order to prove genocidal intent. This is a very clear example of that.”
Returned
But there is some good news for Ukrainian families. 128 children that had been illegally taken were returned to their country. Yuliia Usenko, Head of the Department for the Protection of the Interests of Children and Combating Violence of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, told Ukrinform: “We have managed to bring 128 children back to Ukraine. More than 50 of them, together with their parents or guardians, are currently in EU countries.” But it is difficult to get the children back to their homeland. Usenko explains: “Bringing them back to the Motherland is the work of a large number of people. They have been working for months to bring back at least one child. That’s a lot of security risks, including for people helping the process.”
And the team will keep working on bringing more children back: “Ukraine is doing everything it can, but, unfortunately, it is not enough. The usual tools of diplomacy are not working, the requirements of international humanitarian law against the aggressor are not working, therefore there is no single mechanism, and common rules do not apply. Our task is to be continuously searching for ways and to maintain a dialogue with those who support us,” she told Ukrinform.
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Source: ABC News, Ukrinform, AP News | Image: Unsplash, Brandon Morales