Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, went to sites in southern Ukraine as part of his investigation into the deportations of Ukrainian children in Russia.
by Stéphanie Maupas (La Haye, Correspondence)
In the photos, Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) wore the bulletproof vest and heavy helmet, while he went on Thursday, March 2, in the south of Ukraine, in the aim to “visit sites related to allegations of children’s deportation”, as the ICC on social networks said. Mr. Khan, who has been investigating the crimes committed in Ukraine for a year, began his fourth visit to the country at the start of the week.
“It is very important for Ukrainian society, in particular for future generations, that you can focus on the deportation cases of our children,” Ukrainian President, VolodyMyr Zelensky, said to the prosecutor during the prosecutor during ‘An interview organized at the start of this visit, on February 28, in the presence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, and the Attorney General of Ukraine, Andriy Kostin. The CPI prosecutor is investigating cases of deportations in Russia of Ukrainian children and several sources have indicated to the world that he “plans to issue arrest warrants” on these facts in the near future.
Since the start of the war on February 24, 2022, NGOs and researchers have documented a deportation and adoption program of Ukrainian children in Russia. In a report published in November 2022, Amnesty International explained that children “orphans or separated from their families according to fights” are offered to Russian families, against remuneration. As of March 3, 16,221 children would have been deported from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia, according to the National Information Office , a Ukrainian government body that records prisoners of war and missing civilians.
For Amnesty International, the facts could be described as crimes against humanity for deportation. In its report published in November, the human rights organization denounces “a state policy”. Moscow, moreover, does not hide it, going so far as to say that this policy serves a fair cause. Russia claims its “humanitarian action” to protect and “save” orphaned or abandoned children. As of March 11, 2022, the Russian Commissioner for the Rights of the Child, Maria Lvova-Belova, and the authorities of the self-proclaimed republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, began to organize the transport of children in Russia. In May, Vladimir Putin signed a decree to facilitate access to Russian nationality of Ukrainians and measures were taken to promote adoptions and integration of children. In a report broadcast in mid-February, Yale researchers evoke the existence of forty-three camps “aimed at re-educating Ukrainian children according to the standards of Russian education”.
You have 66.09% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.