With the help of the organization Save Ukraine, two more Ukrainian children have been returned home from Russian-occupied territory along with their parents.
Russian occupying authorities were forcing the parents to change their children’s Ukrainian birth certificates to Russian ones. The father was also being pressured to register for the Russian military, Save Ukraine reported on Facebook.
Fortunately, the family managed to escape and arrive safely in Ukraine. They are now out of harm’s way.
In total, Save Ukraine has helped return 213 Ukrainian children from Russia and temporarily occupied territories. In October alone, the organization returned 19 children to Ukrainian-controlled areas.
Since the full-scale invasion began, Russia has displaced thousands of Ukrainian children to its territory, the areas of Ukraine it occupies, and Belarus, frequently imposing Russian citizenship on the children and forcibly enabling their adoption by Russian families, obstructing efforts to reunite the children with their parents and homeland. Many children ended up in occupied areas without their biological parents, yet Russia hinders efforts to bring them to safety in free Ukraine to reunite them with relatives.
To address this, the Ukrainian Child Rights Network in partnership with Save the Children International implements the “Way Home” project. Its goals are to search for and return displaced children, bring children stranded in occupied areas without parents to safety, and reunite separated families.
