Ukraine investigating Belarus' involvement in forced transfer of minors
The office of Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin has opened criminal procedures into "the forced transportation/deportation of over 19,000 children" from the seized areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Luhansk
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Ukraine is investigating Belarus' suspected involvement in the forced transfer of minors from Russian-occupied territory, the prosecutor general's office said on Tuesday.
The declaration followed an allegation by the exiled Belarusian opposition saying that 2,150 Ukrainian children, including orphans aged six to 15, had been shipped to so-called recreation camps and sanatoriums in Belarus.
Based to the early assessment of the National Anti-Crisis Management, a group of political opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko's regime, the children were transferred to at least three locations in Belarus.
The office of Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin has opened criminal procedures into "the forced transportation/deportation of over 19,000 children" from the seized areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Luhansk, as per a Reuters report.
"The fact and circumstances of taking Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to the so-called 'recreational camps' in Belarus are currently under investigation in the mentioned criminal proceedings," it said.
What are the violations involved?
The International Criminal Court, the world's permanent war crimes tribunal, issued arrest warrants in March for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children's rights ombudsman, Maria Lvova-Belova, on two charges of war crimes in connection with the relocation of hundreds of Ukrainian children to Russia.
In the words of Yulia Ioffe, an assistant professor at University College London and an expert in children's rights legislation, if the allegations are proven, Belarus would "highly likely" be violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
"The actions of Belarus may also amount to the crime against humanity of ‘deportation of forcible transfer of population’ under the Rome Statute of the ICC, provided there is sufficient evidence of forcible transfers being widespread or systematic," Ioffe said.
Belarus, in any case, cannot be deemed a neutral nation to which children might lawfully be evacuated because there is no proof that Ukraine has provided authorization, she added.
As per the report, Ukrainian children were brought to the Belarusian Golden Sands Sanatorium in the Gomel area, as well as the Ostroshitsky Gorodok Sanatorium and Dubrava camp in the Minsk region.
The transfers of minors to Belarus were illegal and violated the Geneva Conventions and the statute of the International Criminal Court, the report said.
Additionally, the first group of roughly 350 youngsters arrived from the seized Donetsk area on September 5 and 6, followed by the second and third groups in late September and mid-October. Additional transfers were performed in April and May of this year.
The children were transported 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.
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