In Crimea, more than two hundred children are growing up without a father due to occupiers' repression

In Crimea, at least 200 children are growing up without a father because of Russia's political repression of Crimean activists and Ukrainian citizens. Some of them were born after the arrests and have never seen their fathers at large.

This was reported by the press service of the Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

In the temporarily occupied Crimea, at least 242 children are growing up without a father because of political persecution. Their fathers are behind bars because they were repressed for their civic position, participation in the Crimean Tatar movement or for helping other political prisoners.

For many Crimean families, Father's Day is not about family warmth, but about loss. The children were deprived of the most precious thing - their fathers, who were supposed to be there to support, protect, and teach them. Instead, there were searches at dawn, armed security forces in the apartment, and prison sentences on trumped-up charges. Under the occupation, many people spend their childhoods under pressure and in isolation.

The project "Born after Arrest", created by Mumine Saliyeva, the wife of political prisoner Seyran Saliyev, told about children who have never held their father's hand. Her own children also experience separation - Seyran received 16 years in prison for his public and journalistic activities.

11-year-old Hanifa Siruk from Nyzhnohirsk district was born after the arrest of her father, Crimean Tatar activist Vadym Struk. He is serving a 12-year sentence in a colony in Bashkortostan on religious grounds. His daughter has seen him live only once, when she was five years old.

Muhammad Izetov was born two weeks after the arrest of his father, lawyer and human rights activist Riza Izetov. He was sentenced to 19 years in prison. Three-year-old Amaliya Ayvazova saw her father only in prison. Raim Aivazov was kidnapped, tortured and then sentenced to 17 years for his active participation in the Crimean Solidarity. The press service emphasized that these children are just a few examples of more than two hundred.

The occupiers are not just tearing Ukrainian children out of their native environment - they are being taught to fly drones, carry out cyber attacks, and in high school they are actively recruiting them to cadet corps.

There are about 1.5 million children in the temporarily occupied territories, and each of them is under the threat of deportation. Ukraine has already established data on 19,546 children who were forcibly taken to Russia. Among these cases is the deportation of children of parents accused by the occupiers of "espionage." Despite the fact that the parents are alive, the children are adopted or transferred to Russian<span>families.</span>

Анна Бальчінос