The European Commission and Poland are jointly launching an initiative to find Ukrainian children. Russia actively takes them out of the occupied Ukrainian territories, especially from boarding schools and orphanages.
Polskie Radio writes about it.
“According to estimates, since the beginning of the invasion, Russian troops have sent thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia. Kidnapping of Ukrainian children is a big social problem, a tragedy, and a crime,” said Dana Spinant, spokeswoman for the European Commission.
This initiative will also be supported by UN agencies. Their main goal is to gather evidence to find abducted children and punish those responsible for these crimes.
More detailed information about the initiative will be announced in the coming days.
- More than 16,000 children who were deported to Russia have already been identified in Ukraine. In 2022, the occupiers sent at least 400 of them to Russian families. There are cases when the Russians changed the personal data of children, for example, when they took them to so-called re-education camps in order not to obtain the consent of their parents.