Belarus accused of role in transfers of Ukrainian children

The Belarusian government has allegedly taken part in the illegal deportation of children from Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, exiled Belarusian opposition leaders said in a preliminary report.

The National Anti-Crisis Management, a group of political opponents to the government of President Alexander Lukashenko, said in the report that 2,150 Ukrainian children, including orphans aged six to 15, were taken to so-called recreation camps and sanatoriums on Belarusian territory, Euractiv reports.

Reuters did not receive answers to questions sent to Lukashenko’s office. Ukraine’s former top prosecutor told Reuters last year there were cases of forced deportations of Ukrainians to Russia and Belarus. Ukrainian prosecutors did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Roughly 20,000 children have been illegally transferred to Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, with some being put up for adoption, Ukraine has alleged.

In March, the International Criminal Court, the world’s permanent war crimes tribunal, issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ombudsman for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for two counts of war crimes for moving hundreds of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Yulia Ioffe, an assistant professor at University College London and a specialist in children’s rights law, said that if substantiated, 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 considered a neutral country to where children could legally be evacuated because there is no indication Ukraine has granted consent, she said.

The report asserts that Ukrainian children were taken to the Belarusian Golden Sands Sanatorium in the Gomel region and the Ostroshitsky Gorodok Sanatorium and Dubrava camp in the Minsk region.

The transfers of children to Belarus were illegal and in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the statute of the ICC, the report said.

A first group of approximately 350 children arrived from the occupied Donetsk region on 5 and 6 September, followed by the second and third group in late September and mid-October, it said. Additional transfers were made in April and May of this year.

The children were taken 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.