Ukraine investigates Belarus’ role in forced deportation of children

Ukraine says it has commenced investigation into the alleged role of Belarus in the forced deportation of children from Russian-occupied territories.

The office of the prosecutor general made the announcement in response to a report by the exiled Belarusian opposition alleging that 2,150 Ukrainian children, including orphans aged six to 15, were taken to so-called recreation camps and sanatoriums on Belarusian territory.

Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin’s office said it has launched criminal proceedings into “the forced transportation/deportation of over 19,000 children” from the occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv to Belarus.

The National Anti-Crisis Management, a group of political opponents to the government of President Alexander Lukashenko, said in its preliminary report that the children were taken to at least three locations in Belarus.

In March, the International Criminal Court, the world’s permanent war crimes tribunal, issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ombudsman for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, on two counts of war crimes for moving hundreds of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Yulia Ioffe, an assistant professor at University College London and a specialist in children’s rights law, said that if substantiated, Belarus would “highly likely” be violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Belarus in any case cannot be considered a neutral country to where children could legally be evacuated because there is no indication Ukraine has granted consent, she said.

The report asserts that Ukrainian children were taken to the Belarusian Golden SandsSanatorium in the Gomel region and the Ostroshitsky Gorodok Sanatorium and Dubrava camp in the Minsk region.

The transfers of children to Belarus were illegal and in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the statute of the ICC, the report said.

A first group of approximately 350 children arrived from the occupied Donetsk region on Sept. 5 and 6, followed by the second and third group in late September and mid-October, it said. Additional transfers were made in April and May of this year.

The children were taken by bus to Russia from Russian-held territories of Ukraine and then by train to Belarus, it said.

“Lukashenko personally ordered the transfers of orphans to Belarus and facilitated their arrival by financial and organisational support,” it said, accusing him of war crimes.