GENEVA, March 17 ------ Russia's forced transfer and deportation of Ukrainian children to areas under its control amounts to a war crime, UN investigators said, also warning of possible crimes against humanity.
In its first report, the high-level investigation team created by the UN Human Rights Council a year ago determined that Russia had committed a vast array of violations since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
"Many of these amount to war crimes," the report by the so-called Commission of Inquiry said, highlighting the forced transfers of children. The commission has concluded that the situations it has examined concerning the transfer and deportation of children, within Ukraine and to the Russian Federation respectively, violate international humanitarian law, and amount to a war crime.
According to Kyiv, 16,221 Ukrainian children were deported to Russia as of last month.
Source: gmanetwork.com