Hundreds of children taken from Ukraine found in Russia’s Taganrog

Hundreds of children gone missing in Ukraine have been found at a sanitarium in the southern Russian city of Taganrog.

Their removal from their homeland could be considered grounds for yet more war crime charges against Russia.

The children were taken to Russia from Ukraine’s Donetsk Region, journalists from the Russian media Verstka reported.

The over 400 minors were settled at a sanitarium in Taganrog called Romashka, which has been converted into a temporary refugee facility for Ukrainians. The youngest of the children is two years old.

A volunteer who visited the camp said that not only orphans from boarding schools had been taken there but also those whose fathers had been called up to serve in the army.

The staff of the camp have said that many of the children talk about the desire to return home. But instead they are being slotted to receive Russian passports and put up for adoption by Russian parents.

The transfer of children to an aggressor country is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Convention. Kyiv is already calling the removal and retention of Ukrainian orphans in Russia an act of genocide.

Since the beginning of the war, at least 2,000 orphans from Ukraine have been taken to Russia. Ukraine asserts that consent was not given to the Russian Federation to conduct “a mass evacuation” of children from orphanages and boarding schools, which also includes street children who lost contact with their parents due to hostilities.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has already spoken about the “forced deportation” of children from eastern Ukraine to Russia. Such cases can be used as evidence of genocide, which Ukraine has already accused Russia of.