Dozens of residents of a boarding school in Oleshky went missing after the occupation

Relatives of people with disabilities who were taken from a residential care facility in occupied Oleshky, Kherson Oblast, after the start of the full-scale war have been unable to find out what has become of them for four years now. Some families have no contact whatsoever with their loved ones, and humanitarian organizations say there is no international mechanism for their return.

This is reported by The New York Times.

One of those who continues to search for a loved one is Hanna Zamyshlyaeva. Her son, Anton Volkovych, who has a severe disability, was at a specialized facility in Oleshky when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. He was later transported, along with other residents, to other occupied areas without notifying his relatives.

“I don’t know where my son is, what has happened to him, what condition he’s in, or even if he’s still alive,” she said during a press conference in Kyiv.

Two other women joined her in speaking about their loved ones. They are searching for 22-year-old Marina and 26-year-old Anna, who also lived at the Oleshky residential care facility and were taken away by Russian authorities after the occupation.

According to the Dutch humanitarian organization Emile Foundation, 101 people were living at the facility before the full-scale war began. Only 13 of them were able to be picked up by their parents at the start of the invasion.

After an extensive search, the organization was able to determine the fate of 46 residents of the boarding school. It is known that four people died in the first months of the war, while the rest were transferred to other specialized facilities in the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region. Some were also taken to Penza, Russia.

The foundation notes that even after determining the whereabouts of these individuals, bringing them home is extremely difficult. The reason is the lack of an international humanitarian mechanism that would allow for the evacuation of people with disabilities from the occupied territories or Russia.

According to representatives of the organization, a separate humanitarian channel and international mediators are needed to facilitate the return of these individuals.

Previously, a UN International Commission concluded that Russia’s removal of Ukrainian children from temporarily occupied territories constitutes a crime against humanity. Furthermore, the commission considers the delay in their return to Ukraine to be a war crime. 

As a reminder, in March 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for the Russian president and the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights. They are suspected of war crimes related totheforceddeportationand displacement of the population, particularly children, from the occupied territories of Ukraine.

According to official Ukrainian data, more than 20,000 Ukrainian children have been in Russia and the occupied territories since the start of the full-scale war. At the same time, Verkhovna Rada OmbudsmanDmytro Lubinetsestimates that Russia has illegally taken about 150,000 minors, while Children’s Rights CommissionerDaria Herasymchukcited a figure of several hundred thousand—approximately 200,000 to 300,000.

Андрій Колісніченко