ISLAMABAD: Russia’s forced transfer and deportation of Ukrainian children to areas under its control amounts to a war crime, a UN probe said Thursday, also warning of possible crimes against humanity.
In its first report, the top-level investigation team created by the UN Human Rights Council a year ago determined that Moscow had committed a wide array of violations since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“Many of these violations amount to war crimes,” the report by the so-called Commission of Inquiry said, underlining the forced transfers of children.
The report said that the commission has concluded that the conditions it has examined concerning the deportation and transfer of children, to the Russian Federation and within Ukraine respectively, violate international humanitarian law, and it is a war crime.
According to Kyiv, 16,221 Ukrainian children were transferred to Russia as of February 2023.
The investigators said they could not verify these figures but pointed to indications that officials in Russia had taken steps to place transferred Ukrainian children in foster homes and institutions and give them citizenship.
Probe on decree
The report said about a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin facilitating the giving of Russian citizenship to some categories of children.
The report emphasized that international humanitarian law bans the evacuation of children by a party to the armed conflict, with only a few exceptions.
The investigators said they had thoroughly reviewed incidents concerning the transfer of 164 children, aged 4 to 18, from the Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Kherson regions.
They said children and parents had spoken of youngsters being informed by Russia’s social services that they would be placed in foster families or adopted. Children expressed a deep fear of being permanently separated from families and relatives.
