Scores of Ukrainian children are still missing after being deported far and wide across Russia and occupied territories while their families continue to search for them, human rights investigators said on Thursday.
Members of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, an independent probe into Russia’s full-scale invasion which presented its latest report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, said that they have verified the deportation and transfer of 1,205 children from Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine to Russia or to other occupied areas in Ukraine. “Based on new evidence, the Commission has now concluded that the Russian authorities committed two types of crimes against humanity: deportation and forcible transfer of children, as well as their enforced disappearance,” said the commission’s chair, Erik Møse.
8 in 10 kids not returned
Commissioner Pablo de Greiff told reporters that the Russian authorities had claimed that relocations were humanitarian evacuations for safety reasons, “but the Commission found that four years later, 80 per cent of the children from the documented cases have not been returned,” Mr. de Greiff said. He stressed that this contravenes international humanitarian law, under which evacuations can only be temporaaris for compelling reasons of health, medical treatment or safety. The Commission’s report says that many parents and legal guardians remain unaware of the children’s fate and whereabouts.
Instead of establishing mechanisms to facilitate their return, Russian authorities “arranged for the children’s long-term placement with families or institutions in 21 regions of the Russian Federation and in occupied areas of Ukraine”, Mr. de Greiff said, following a “carefully organized plan” and “pursuant to a policy conceived and executed under the leadership at the highest level of the Russian Federation state apparatus”.
In March 2023, the UN-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in connection with alleged war crimes concerning the deportation and “illegal transfer” of children from occupied Ukraine. Asked about engagement with the Russian authorities on the matter, Mr. de Greiff stressed that the Commission had submitted to them “39 written requests for information about different issues, including the issue of children…and we have never received a reply”.
Source: The UN
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