Report: the difficult return of Ukrainian children deported to Russia

Russian authorities are abducting and “re-educating” thousands of Ukrainian children caught up in the turmoil of the war. They are then placed with Russian foster families.

According to Kiev, around 20,000 children have been deported since the occupation of Crimea in 2014. Our reporters Mayssa Awad and George Yazbek met with Ukrainian guardians. They informed them about the difficulties they face in getting these deported children back.

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“They would have forced me to change the birth certificates of the two girls, so as they usually do, they would have organized a summer camp and would have taken the children away from us”, explains a Ukrainian woman who had to flee from Kherson while this city in the southern part of the country was under Russian occupation.

In the grip of deep stress, these children strive for a new start, in their own country, through therapeutic supervision. A hundred of them could be sent back to Ukraine this year through the NGO “Red Ukraine”.