Charity facilitates the return of 17 Ukrainian children deported by Russia
On Thursday, the Save Ukraine charity facilitated the return of 17 Ukrainian children taken from the Kherson and Kharkiv regions and relocated to Russian and occupied territories.
A press release from the foundation says Russia refused to return the children to their parents after Ukraine liberated the Russian-occupied territories from which they had been removed. “Complex logistics, constant danger, [crossing] the line of fire and several borders, for many of their [parents], turned getting the children back into a huge task,” said the foundation.
A teenager in the return group described the conditions at a camp in Crimea as difficult and abusive, saying he and others were fed poorly, and those who expressed support for Ukraine were beaten with metal pipes. One of the camp counselors who doled out these punishments apparently “imagined himself as, like, a king,” said the teen:
They hit one girl on the back, she got a bruise. There was no normal food; we ran away to buy normal food. We were sitting in the assembly hall, and one of the children shouted, “Glory to Ukraine!” Another answered, “Glory to the heroes!” and they were both taken away. I don’t know what happened to them.
He also said that staff at the camp lied to the children about the Ukrainian military’s liberation of Kherson, said their parents had given them up, and told the children that they would be transferred to a facility in Pskov, where Russian families would adopt them. The teenager says that one parent who called the camp’s director to complain was told, “You won’t get them back anyway, they will be Russian children.”