Russia-Ukraine War: Kyiv Investigating Belarus' Involvement in Forced Transfer of Ukrainian Children

The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said it was investigating the alleged role Belarus had in the forced transfer of Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied territories. This follows the report made by the exiled Belarusian opposition alleging such activities being done in Belarusian territory.

The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office on Tuesday told Reuters that it was looking into Belarus’ possible involvement in the forced transfer of Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied territories. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin’s office said it had launched criminal proceeds into the “forced transportation/deportation of over 19,000 children” from the occupied regions of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv, including to Belarus.

“The fact and circumstances of taking Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to the so-called ‘recreational camps’ in Belarus are currently under investigation in the mentioned criminal proceedings,” said Kostin’s office.

The response by Kyiv follows the report released by the Belarusian opposition, which alleged that around 2,150 Ukrainian children, some of which were orphans between the ages of six to 15, were being taken to so-called recreation camps and sanatoriums on Belarusian territory.

The opposition, the National Anti-Crisis Management, made up of a group of political opponents to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s administration, said in its initial report that Ukrainian children were being taken to at least three locations in Belarus. The report said that Ukrainian children were taken to the Belarusian Golden Sands Sanatorium in the Gomel region, the Oshtroshitsky Gorodok Sanatorium, and the Dubrava Camp, both of which are in Minsk.

The transfers of Ukrainian children to Belarus were illegal and breached the Geneva Conventions and the statute of the International Criminal Court, the report said. The report also went on to accuse Lukashenko of “personally ordering” the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has estimated that the number of civilian fatalities in Ukraine was around 8,000, with over 12,500 injured as the war reaches its 15th month, with the actual numbers likely higher.

During a meeting of the UN Security Council, the ambassadors of Ukraine’s Western allies and Russia traded jabs over the numbers, with the French ambassador to the UN, Nicolas de Riviere, singling out the alleged human rights violations committed by Russia in Ukraine as well as the Russian Wagner mercenary group in Mali.

Photo: US Institute of Peace/Wikimedia Commons(CC by 2.0)