19,384. That is how many children were illegally deported from Ukraine to Russia during the war, according to the list of names posted on the Children of War website https://lnkd.in/g_8gs4xU.

From the LinkedIn page of Marianna Rozumna

April 19, 2023

So far, only 324 children have been returned to Ukraine, mostly those whose parents personally came to Russia to pick them up. But what about orphans? Or children who were taken out of basements during active hostilities? Many of them do not even know if their relatives are still alive and can take care of them.

A similar situation happened in 1937-1938 during the Spanish Civil War. Then about 3,000 children were evacuated from Spain to the USSR. Some of them, like some Ukrainians, were first sent to the Artek camp on the Crimean peninsula. The evacuation was done, and the children were placed throughout the USSR.

Even when they grew up, the Spaniards could not legally leave the country, and for trying to escape they received dozens of years in the Gulag. Many of them were reunited with their families only after Stalin died, in the late 1950s.

We mustn`t allow Ukrainian children to repeat the fate of the Spaniards, remaining in captivity in Russia for many years. Therefore, we must draw attention to this problem at all levels. The International Court of Justice has already issued an arrest warrant for President Putin and Russian Children’s Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova for the suspected illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.

However, there is still a lot of work to be done. It is necessary to find out the fate of more than 19,000 forcibly removed children and do everything to ensure their safe return to Ukraine as soon as possible.

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