The United States assumes that Russia has forcibly abducted tens of thousands of Ukrainians since the start of its war of aggression.
From the besieged port city of Mariupol alone, thousands of people were taken to Russia or Russian-controlled areas, said US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Michael Carpenter, on Thursday in Vienna.
The Ukrainian government estimates the number of kidnapped Ukrainians at almost 1.2 million. According to the ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova, at least 200,000 children are among them. According to Kiev, Moscow also operates so-called filtration camps in which arrested Ukrainians are interrogated.
Eyewitnesses reported “brutal interrogations” in those camps, Carpenter said. This and the forced deportations would amount to war crimes. “We must not allow this evil to happen,” he said. The UN Human Rights Council voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to investigate alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
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