Nine Ukrainian children liberated from occupied Kherson region

Nine Ukrainian children aged 7 to 17, including an orphan, have been returned from the occupied Kherson region. Their stories show the cruelty of the occupation regime and the importance of efforts to save every child.

This was reported by the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Prokudin.

Nine children - five boys and four girls aged 7 to 17 - returned to the government-controlled territory from the temporarily occupied part of Kherson region. One of them has the status of an orphan.

According to the press service, the 10-year-old boy and his mother were locked in the basement by the occupiers when his father was severely beaten for trying to protect his wife from violence by a Russian military. At school, the child was forced to sing the Russian national anthem and wear a cap.

A 15-year-old girl was deprived of her right to education due to a lack of connection, making it impossible for her to participate in online lessons at a Ukrainian school. And a 17-year-old girl was on the verge of death due to lack of proper medical care - she was not diagnosed in time, and only an emergency operation saved her life.

Two more sisters lived in complete isolation for almost three years: due to the destroyed school and kindergarten and constant shelling, they did not leave the house and had no contact with their peers.

The return of the children became possible thanks to the work of Save Ukraine as part of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 's Bring Kids Back UA initiative.

In March, two teenagers, 14-year-old Kateryna and 16-year-old Oleksiy, were evacuated from the temporarily occupied left bank of Kherson region. Kateryna was denied medical care by the occupiers because of her Ukrainian citizenship, offering her a Russian passport. Her father was forced to sign a contract with the Russian army, threatening to take the children to a camp. After a nervous breakdown, the girl was assigned a psychologist from the FSB.

Oleksiy was humiliated at school for using Ukrainian letters, was registered for military service against his will, and his classmates were threatened with mobilization. His girlfriend and her family were deported. In total, 25 children have been returned from the occupied territories since the beginning of the year.

Анна Шаповал