UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) demanded Tuesday that Moscow provide access to and information about Ukrainian kids and other civilians forcibly transferred to territory under its control.
The top UN rights body approved a resolution demanding that Russia cease the unlawful forced deportation and transfer of civilians and other protected persons to the Russian Federation or within Ukraine.
The resolution, which passed with twenty-eight of the 47 council members voting in favour, seventeen abstaining, and only Eritrea and China opposed, underlined in particular the transfer of children, including separated children, those from institutional care, and unaccompanied children.
Hot-button topic in UN session
The Kremlin’s alleged transfer of tens of thousands of kids from war-torn Ukraine to Russia or areas occupied by it has been a hot-button topic throughout the nearly 6-week session of the Geneva-based council.
Kyiv maintains that over 16,000 Ukrainian children have been transferred to Russia as of February this year.
Yevheniia Filipenko, the Ukrainian ambassador, said that the scope and brutality of Moscow’s atrocities in Ukraine are beyond any human comprehension.
She said that the most disturbing of them is the forcible deportation of children to Russia for adoption and re-education and adoption.
Michele Taylor, US ambassador, said that the forcible transfer, transport, and deportation of Ukraine’s kids is truly sickening.
China, however, pushed the text to a vote, with representative Li Xaomei criticizing it as an instrumentalization of human rights issues.
She insisted the body would have been better off supporting talks between Ukraine and Russia and should stop spreading oil over fire.
Tuesday’s text, which also prolonged a top-level investigation into violations committed in the context of Moscow’s war in Ukraine, called for Russia to provide access to all those transferred for another year.
