> A trail of evidence on social networks and state media detail Minsk’s role in a potential war crime
>
> …
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> The arrival of groups of hundreds of children from eastern Ukraine to Belarus, where they are sent to large recreational camps, has been well documented in the country’s state media, which hews closely to the government’s line. But rights advocates and foreign governments are only just starting to grapple with what happens to the children from there.
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> “Information about those camps is really in short supply,” said Wayne Jordash, a human rights lawyer who is assisting the Ukrainian government’s war crimes investigations.
>
> …
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> Pavel Latushka, Belarus’s former minister of culture-turned-opposition figure, has the most detailed public accounting of deportations. By tracking posts on social networks, reports in the state media, and from its own sources, his organization, the National Anti-Crisis Management Group, found evidence that at least 2,100 Ukrainian children were taken to Belarus from occupied territories between September 2022 and May of this year. What they found was evidence of “systematically organized, [large] scale war crimes, led by Lukashenko personally and supported by some individuals and so-called NGOs,” he said in an interview.
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> In June, Latushka handed over a dossier of information about his findings to the International Criminal Court (ICC). A spokesperson for the court declined to comment.
>
> …
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> In an interview with Belarusian state TV, Olga Vokova, whose organization “Dolphins” is based in the unrecognized separatist Donetsk People’s Republic and has worked with Talai to bring children from the Donbas to Belarus, described children from newly occupied regions, such as Mariupol in southern Ukraine, as “pre-programmed” for evil. She said that they had to do “everything so as to melt their hearts and show them that we [people from the separatist regions] are not evil.”
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> Rashevska, the Ukrainian human rights lawyer, said similar efforts were underway in Belarus, as in Russia, to quash their identities.
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> “In these camps, the national identity of Ukrainian children is eradicated. These children are brainwashed, Russified, militarized,” she said.
1 comment
> A trail of evidence on social networks and state media detail Minsk’s role in a potential war crime
>
> …
>
> The arrival of groups of hundreds of children from eastern Ukraine to Belarus, where they are sent to large recreational camps, has been well documented in the country’s state media, which hews closely to the government’s line. But rights advocates and foreign governments are only just starting to grapple with what happens to the children from there.
>
> “Information about those camps is really in short supply,” said Wayne Jordash, a human rights lawyer who is assisting the Ukrainian government’s war crimes investigations.
>
> …
>
> Pavel Latushka, Belarus’s former minister of culture-turned-opposition figure, has the most detailed public accounting of deportations. By tracking posts on social networks, reports in the state media, and from its own sources, his organization, the National Anti-Crisis Management Group, found evidence that at least 2,100 Ukrainian children were taken to Belarus from occupied territories between September 2022 and May of this year. What they found was evidence of “systematically organized, [large] scale war crimes, led by Lukashenko personally and supported by some individuals and so-called NGOs,” he said in an interview.
>
> In June, Latushka handed over a dossier of information about his findings to the International Criminal Court (ICC). A spokesperson for the court declined to comment.
>
> …
>
> In an interview with Belarusian state TV, Olga Vokova, whose organization “Dolphins” is based in the unrecognized separatist Donetsk People’s Republic and has worked with Talai to bring children from the Donbas to Belarus, described children from newly occupied regions, such as Mariupol in southern Ukraine, as “pre-programmed” for evil. She said that they had to do “everything so as to melt their hearts and show them that we [people from the separatist regions] are not evil.”
>
> Rashevska, the Ukrainian human rights lawyer, said similar efforts were underway in Belarus, as in Russia, to quash their identities.
>
> “In these camps, the national identity of Ukrainian children is eradicated. These children are brainwashed, Russified, militarized,” she said.