Ukraine handed the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) a list with the names of 19,000 children deported to Russia.
Maria Mezentseva, head of the permanent delegation of the Verkhovna Rada to PACE, announced this on Radio Svoboda on April 28.
The organization received a joint file from the working group under the President of Ukraine on the return of Ukrainian children. The list was compiled on the basis of more than 19,000 applications submitted by Ukrainian human rights defenders and authorities working on this issue.
Currently, according to Mezentseva, the employees of the Red Cross can visit deported children in Russian camps, foster families and other places of illegal stay — they have almost no direct authority to do so.
- On April 27, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recognized the deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to the territory of Russia as genocide. PACE called on the International Criminal Court to consider the possibility of criminal prosecution for this crime.
- Russia deported 19,393 children from Ukraine and created more than 70 camps where they are forcibly held. Since part of the territory of Ukraine is under occupation and the authorities do not have access to it, it may actually be about several hundred thousand kidnapped children.
- Deportation of Ukrainian children is one of Russiaʼs war crimes. For this, on March 17, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin and the Russian Childrenʼs Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova.