The foreign ministry this Wednesday “decisively” rejected statements by Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, who accused Portugal and other countries of taking “hundreds” of Ukrainian children from their mothers to place them in foster care. places.
“The Portuguese government firmly rejects these statements by the Russian ambassador and reaffirms its support for Ukraine in various dimensions, including the reception of displaced Ukrainians, victims of Russian aggression against their country”supported Portuguese diplomacy, in a note to the editors.
On March 17, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges for his alleged involvement in child abductions in Ukraine.
In a statement, the ICC accuses Putin of being “allegedly responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of population (children) and illegal transfer of population (children) from occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.
At stake are thousands of Ukrainian children who were forcibly transported to Russia or to Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian troops.
A report on Russia’s Systematic Program for the Re-education and Adoption of Children from Ukraine, released in February by the Humanitarian Research Laboratory at the Yale School of Public Health (HRL), estimates that more than 6,000 Ukrainian minors are being placed in 43 re-education or Russian orphanages after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The report admits that the number could be much higher.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) Human Rights Watch (HRW) claims in another report that thousands of Ukrainian children living in orphanages were forcibly transferred to Russia or the occupied territories.
According to Ukrainian authorities, 16,221 children had been deported to Russia by the end of February, a number the UN Human Rights Commission was unable to confirm.
Source: DN
