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Posted On

28
February
2023

Ukraine returns 307 children out of over 16,000 deported to Russia, Belarus – Prosecutor General

KYIV. Feb 28 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Russia’s terror in the occupied territories against the civilian population is a deliberate strategy of the enemy, Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin has said.

“Terror against the civilian population of Ukraine is a deliberate strategy of Russia. It includes indiscriminate shelling, torture, sexual violence and filtration camps in the occupied territories,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said on Tuesday in a Telegram channel, referring to the words of Kostin during a meeting with Commissioner of the Council of Europe for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović.

“One of the most egregious crimes is the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and Belarus. In May 2022, Putin signed a decree on a simplified procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship for children from Donbas, Zaporizhia and Kherson,” the prosecutor general said.

The ministry said in the statement the deportation of more than 16,000 children has now been confirmed. “We managed to return 307 of them. To do more, more help from the international community is needed,” the PGO said.

According to the department, human rights are constantly violated in the occupied Crimea: illegal searches and “trials” are carried out there, and the indigenous people, the Crimean Tatars, suffer especially from this.

“We must stop Russia and hold accountable for these egregious violations of human rights,” the prosecutor general said.