UKRAINE: Qatar and Bring Kids Back return five more children from Occupied Donbass and Crimea
HRWF (29.03.2025) – Five more Ukrainian children who were in the territories occupied by the Russian army were returned to Ukraine on 27 March. These are minors aged 11 to 16 from Luhansk region, Donetsk region, Zaporizhzhia region and Crimea.
Qatar is the only country to successfully act as a broker between Russia and Ukraine on the return of children who have been separated from their families during the three-year war.
The UN institutions and Western countries are unable to repatriate Ukrainian children kept against their will in Russia or in the Ukrainian Occupied territories despite their loudly announced appointments of various special envoys for the liberation of Ukrainian children. Only Qatar organizes such rescue operations.
Among those returned is a 12-year-old girl. Her parents are divorced, and her father is in captivity of the Russian army.
“In three years of full-scale invasion, the girl changed her place of residence twice, had conflicts with her mother. In the past year, the condition of both mental and physical health has significantly deteriorated in a minor. Fortunately, we helped my grandmother to arrange custody of the girl. In the future, the child will be provided with all the necessary assistance,” Lubinets said.
A boy whose father treated them cruelly was also returned from the occupied territories of Ukraine.
“Despite the facts of physical violence against the child, the “local” social services were in no hurry to help the child. The mother tried to take the boy out on her own, but the attempts were unsuccessful. And only thanks to the appeal to our Office and the involvement of the unchanging predecessor of the State of Qatar, the mother and her son were reunited,” the ombudsman’s page said.
The head of the Office of the presidant Yermak also said that a 10-year-old boy was returned from the occupation. He lived in the temporarily occupied territories with his sick grandmother.
“When the war started, his mother was in another city. She tried to take her son on her own several times, risking everything, but to no avail. Now the family is together again and safe on the territory of Ukraine.”
Photo: Children who managed to return from the temporarily occupied territories to Ukraine.