Dharamshala: This morning, a group of Muslim scholars from Malaysia, Sweden and the USA received an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at his residence in Dharamshala.
His Holiness had a brief interaction with the scholars where he spoke about the promotion of religious harmony as one of his four principal commitments for a peaceful and compassionate world.
“All religions may have different philosophies but all religions are unifying in the promotion of Karuna (compassion) and Ahimsa (peace)”, said His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Speaking further, His Holiness pointed out the futility of conflict in the name of religion, adding, that acceptance or rejection of faith in a religion is an individual choice.
“Religion is man-made but the essence and the message of all religions is the same, so, there is no reason to create conflict in the name of religion”, added His Holiness.
He further reminded about the special bond shared between the Muslims and Tibetans dating back to the Tibetan empire when the two were major trading partners. His Holiness conveyed that friendship between the two communities remains intact today as well.
“The Tibetan government also recognises the Muslim community with respect,” said His Holiness in conclusion and expressed his delightedness in meeting the Muslim scholars today.
The crisis has left families in the flood-affected areas with no choice but to use potentially contaminated water.
“Safe drinking water is not a privilege, it is a basic human right”, said UNICEF Representative in Pakistan, Abdullah Fadil. “Yet, every day, millions of girls and boys in Pakistan are fighting a losing battle against preventable waterborne diseases and the consequential malnutrition.”
UNICEF warns that the lack of access to safe drinking water and toilets, as well as the presence of stagnant water, are contributing to “widespread” outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dengue, and malaria.
According to the UN Children’s Fund, beyond being a health hazard, the lack of proper toilets is “disproportionally affecting children, adolescent girls and women who are at added risk of shame and harm when defecating outdoors.”
Rising malnutrition
Unsafe water and poor sanitation are also “key underlying causes” of malnutrition. UNICEF highlights that a third of all child deaths globally are attributable to malnutrition, while half of all undernutrition cases are linked to infections caused by a lack of access to safe water, adequate sanitation and good hygiene.
In Pakistan’s flood-affected areas, more than 1.5 million boys and girls are already severely malnourished, and UNICEF expects these numbers to rise. Malnutrition is associated with half of all child deaths in the country.
Humanitarian needs
Last year’s unprecedented flooding, triggered by severe monsoon rains, submerged a third of Pakistan’s land mass.
According to the UN Office in the country, more than 33 million people were affected overall, or one in seven Pakistanis, and eight million were displaced, causing humanitarian needs to surge.
The UN reported on Tuesday that as of 15 March, humanitarians had reached more than seven million flood-affected Pakistanis with food and other essential services. UNICEF and partners have so far provided safe drinking water to nearly 1.2 million children and families, and supported the rehabilitation of water supply facilities benefitting over 450,000 people.
Speaking at an international conference dedicated to the emergency back in January this year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stressed that “rebuilding Pakistan in a resilient way” will require “supporting women and children, who are up to 14 times more likely than men to die during disasters, and face the brunt of upheaval and loss in humanitarian crises”.
Call for funding
Ahead of Wednesday’s World Water Day, UNICEF has called for resources to urgently restore access to safe drinking water and toilets in the flood-affected areas. Investment is also needed in climate-resilient water supply facilities, such as those powered by solar energy.
UNICEF’s $173.5 million appeal for this crisis remains less than 50 per cent funded.
Amid the current global food crisis, with many families struggling to put food on the table, governments are increasingly seeing the value of these initiatives, according to the State of School-Feeding Worldwidereport.
School meals are a critical safety net for vulnerable children and households at a time when some 345 million people are facing crisis levels of hunger, including 153 million children and young people.
“As the world grapples with a global food crisis, which risks robbing millions of children of their future, school meals have a vital role to play. In many of the countries where we work, the meal a child gets in school might be the only meal they get that day,” said Carmen Burbano, WFP’s head of school-based programmes.
Learning from the pandemic
WFP said countries worked to restore free lunch programmes following the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago. This has led to the rise in boys and girls receiving school meals, who represent 41 per cent of all children in school.
The global recovery received crucial support from the government-led School Meals Coalition, established in 2020 to respond to the pandemic’s impact.
Today, 75 governments are members of the coalition, which aims to ensure every child can receive a daily, nutritious meal in school by 2030.
Greater investment needed
However, the report also highlighted differences between rich countries, where 60 percent of school children get meals, and low-income nations, where only 18 per cent do. This is four per cent below pre-pandemic levels, with Africa registering the biggest declines.
The report also found that some low-income countries have been unable to rebuild their national programmes and need more help. In eight African countries, less than 10 per cent of school children receive a free or subsidized school meal.
“Investments are lowest where children need school meals the most,” said Ms. Burbano. “We need to support low-income countries in finding more sustainable ways of funding these programmes. This will require time-bound support from donor countries as well as increases in domestic investment.”
A WFP-supported school meal is served to children in the Philippines.
Wide-ranging benefits
The report also highlighted the wide-ranging benefits of school meals. A free lunch attracts more students to the classroom, especially girls, and helps them to learn better when they are there, for example.
Experts also found that the combination of health and education offers children in poor countries the best route out of poverty and malnutrition.
Furthermore, research has shown that school meals programmes can increase enrolment rates, as well as attendance, by nearly 10 per cent.
The health of Europe’s forests and linked ecosystems are facing an increasing number of challenges, including deforestation due to urban development, pollution and impacts of climate change, all of which threaten forest resilience. Maintaining and ensuring their long-term health will require more sustainable management practices and proactive efforts to address the impacts of climate change according to two European Environment Agency (EEA) briefings published today, on 21 March – International Day of Forests.
Forest ecosystems play a vital role in supporting biodiversity and provide many benefits to our own well-being, helping to provide clean air and water, regulating weather extremes as well as providing recreation. However, forests are trying to cope with dramatic changes over past decades which have left them more vulnerable to disease, pests and biodiversity loss.
Forest restoration is critical for addressing Europe’s many environmental and social challenges. They also have an important role to play in Europe’s shift to sustainability. By restoring degraded forest ecosystems and promoting sustainable forest management practices, such as reduced-impact logging and the promotion of certified sustainable forest products, Europe can help to mitigate climate change, preserve biodiversity, and provide society with a range of essential ecosystem services to society, including carbon sequestration, water regulation and biodiversity conservation.
Approximately 10% of the EU’s annual greenhouse gas emissions are absorbed and stored in forest soils and biomass.
Increasing pressures
The current state of European forests is a mixed picture of improving and deteriorating conditions.While some indications such as structure, biomass volume, and productivity, suggest improving forest conditions, others, such as defoliation, tree canopy mortality, and deadwood, suggest a critical condition.
The increasing strain on forests is a cause for concern, especially in Central Europe where spruce forests are facing bark beetle outbreaks and forests in the Mediterranean region which are under stress due to drought, wildfires and land-use change.
Heatwaves and droughts weaken trees, making them more susceptible to insect pests and other disturbances like wind or fire. The frequency and intensity of these disturbances have also increased over the last 70 years.
Overall, land-use change remains the largest threat to forests, however, climate change is expected to overtake it and become the greatest threat to forest health over the coming years.
Growing value of forests
Forests are no longer seen only as an economic resource. The European Green Deal recognises the key role healthy forests play in helping us shift to a sustainable, low-carbon future.
Under the European Green Deal, the EU has committed to planting 3 billion additional trees by 2030 and increasing the resilience and biodiversity of existing forest ecosystems. The EU and Member States are implementing various policies and initiatives supporting forest restoration to achieve these goals. These include funding for reforestation and afforestation projects, support for sustainable forest management practices, and the development of green corridors and other landscape-scale approaches to forest restoration.
The EU has also set ambitious targets for forest restoration as part of broader efforts to address climate change and biodiversity loss. The EU Forest Strategy for 2030 and the proposed Nature Restoration Law aim to strengthen the biodiversity objectives and the protection, restoration and resilience of Europe’s forests. They are crucial to achieve a sustainable and climate-neutral economy by 2050.
The continued ability of Europe’s forests to provide its key ecosystem services depends on climate change and the actions by state- and non-state actors. Given the longevity of trees, these decisions will need a long-term perspective beyond 2050 and will need to encompass the role of forests, considering the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals on preserving biodiversity and climate action.
On March 9, 2023, 7 Jehovah’s Witnesses and an unborn child were killed by a mass shooter during a religious service in Hamburg. The killer was a former member of the congregation, who had left more than a year ago, but had allegedly grievances against his former group, and against religious groups in general. He killed himself after perpetrating the massacre.
Whilst the multiple murders triggered messages of sympathy and support for the Jehovah’s Witnesses from the German authorities, there has not been any international move or expression of sympathy from other European governments. Moreover, some “anticult” activists used the momentum to blame the Jehovah’s Witnesses for the murder, arguing that the murderer could have had good reasons to act, to be found in his association with the religious movement and its doctrine.
Would it be people excusing a rapist and blaming the rape victim for the rapist behavior, this would have triggered a legitimate outcry. Would it be someone blaming terrorism victims for what happened to them, this would have certainly led to criminal prosecution. Here, nothing of that kind happened.
So we decided to reach out to Raffaella Di Marzio, a well-known expert in the psychology of religion. Raffaella is founder and Director of The Center for Studies on Freedom of Religion, Belief and Conscience (LIREC). Since 2017, she is Professor of Psychology of Religion at the University of Bari Aldo Moro in Italy. She has published four books and hundreds of articles about cults, mind control, New Religious Movements and anti-cult groups and is among the authors of three different encyclopedias.
The European Times: You said that to prevent such massacres, law enforcement agencies should investigate anyone who incites hatred toward a particular religious minority. Can you explain the link and why this would be efficient?
Raffaella Di Marzio: According to the OSCE definition “Hate crimes are criminal acts motivated by bias or prejudice towards particular groups of people. Hate crimes comprise two elements: a criminal offence and a bias motivation”. Bias motivations can be defined as prejudice, intolerance or hatred directed at a particular group sharing a common identity trait, such as the religion. I think that dissemination of false information about religious minorities causes prejudices. This is very dangerous, in particular, for the religious organizations that have the minority status in a given territory and the political and media focus on them at a particular moment. I think that law enforcement agencies should monitor all people and organizations who spread false information using a language of hatred towards a particular minority. While it is difficult for law enforcement agencies to pre-emptively identify an individual capable of carrying out massacres such as this one, it is incumbent on them to investigate anyone who incites hatred toward a particular religious minority. It often happens, in fact, that from hate speech one moves on to incitement to hatred and finally to direct and violent action against certain minorities who become easy “targets,” thanks in part to the “cult” stigma amplified by the media without any discernment.
ET: In Europe, there is an anti-cult movement which is active and targets religious groups as the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Do you think they bear responsibility of any kind when such an event occurs?
RDM: It’s very important to say that also ODIHR’s hate crime reporting includes reports of physical assaults and murders which indicate that Jehovah’s Witnesses are particularly at risk. The responsibility of the anti-cult organizations is obvious in many cases. For example, Willy Fautré from Human Rights Without Frontiers wrote about defamation cases where anti-cult groups have been condemned by European courts in Austria, France, Germany and Spain and CAP-LC (Coordination des Associations et des Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience), an NGO with special consultative status at the United Nations’ ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council), has filed a written statement to the 47th Session of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council published on 21 June 2021 which denounces the defamation policy, the incitement to stigmatization and hatred towards certain religious and belief groups by FECRIS (European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Cults and Sects) and its member associations. Discrimination and intolerance, often conveyed through warped news, have a serious, negative impact on groups and individuals that end up being ostracized and persecuted by governmental entities, and sometimes victims of hate crime.
ET: Some anti cult people in Germany blamed the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the media, finding excuse to the shooter because he was a former member who certainly had good reasons to have grievance against the Witnesses. What do you think about that? You have been and expert for years now on the topic of discrimination of religious minorities, and in fact, before, you were part of the anti-cult movement before to realize its danger. So you have a direct knowledge of them. Do you think that this kind of events may help them realize that they are acting wrongly, or do you think they will just continue?
RDM: Unfortunately, I think that this kind of things will just continue. Indeed, after the massacre in Hamburg took place, some members of anti-cult organizations not only didn’t realize that they were acting wrongly but started posting comments on social media saying that the killer was an ex-member ostracized by Jehovah’s Witnesses, and almost justified him for what he did.
ET: Do you fear that such events become more frequent?
RDM: I think so, unless we prevent them. Prevention is the main objective of The Center for Studies on Freedom of Religion Belief and Conscience (LIREC) of which I am director. It has dealt many times with media campaigns in which a “criminal” fact is arbitrarily linked to a religious minority and used as a pretext to insert it in an allusive information context that prompts the reader to get an idea of the organization as if it were “controversial”, involved in “dark plots” and would be dangerous for the individual or society.
Faced with these cases, which are repeated and affect minorities that are very different one from each other, our task is to counteract the disinformation and promote objective and documented knowledge on minorities, whether religious or not.
UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner was among officials from across the UN system who participated in an international donors’ conference to support the two countries, held in Brussels on Monday.
The UN is “committed to step up and deploy our assets across the development and humanitarian spheres to stand with; and deliver for communities in Türkiye and Syria,” he said.
The double earthquakes struck on 6 February, displacing roughly 3.3 million people in Türkiye and destroying some 650,000 apartment buildings and houses.
Over half a million people are now homeless in neighbouring Syria, where needs were already at their highest level in 12 years of war, with around 70 per cent of the population – 15.3 million people – requiring humanitarian assistance.
Mr. Steiner stressed that access to basic services and livelihoods is a must for a more sustainable recovery to avoid vulnerability from deepening.
Funding the response
“That means providing emergency assistance to enable people to survive from day-to-day, always the number one priority,” he said.
“It also involves contributing the funds they will need to start returning to normality, to start working again, and to start piecing back together the communities that lays in ruins around them.”
The UN continues to deploy emergency teams and relief operations in both countries. However, a $1 billion appeal for Türkiye is less than 17 per cent funded, he said, while a $398 million flash appeal for Syria has so far received nearly $290 million.
Leadership and generosity
Mr. Steiner said the UN counts on the leadership, solidarity, and generosity of international donors to help to generate significant financing for recovery initiatives, which include debris removal, restoration of incomes and livelihoods, and rehabilitation of critical infrastructure.
“At this tragic moment for the people of Türkiye and Syria, your support will help to light the candles that will illuminate a way out of this darkness, and these candles cannot flicker; they must light the path to recovery,” he said.
Crisis atop crisis
For Syrians, the earthquake has been “akin to the effect of COVID-19 infecting a sick body weakened by 12 years of crisis,” the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the country, El-Mostafa Benlamlih, told the conference.
In addition to the 500,000 Syrians now displaced, thousands more have lost access to basic services and livelihoods, he reported. Furthermore, shelters, camps, and informal settlements are overcrowded, violence and abuse are on the rise, and the threat of cholera is looming.
“Thousands of men, women, children, orphans, and vulnerable people need shelter, food, medicine, blankets, toilets, water, electricity, sewerage, education, health services, and protection,” he said. “Above all, they need dignity, jobs, and legitimate options in life. If left without options, people will seek alternatives elsewhere.”
Mr. Benlamlih warned against “business as usual”, as assistance must lift Syrians out of poverty, reduce vulnerabilities, and break the cycle of dependency on aid.
“Millions of men, women, and children in Syria need our support,” he said. “Let us focus on people not on politics. We need your support, we need funds, and we need access.”
Children from Al-Hamam camp, which is a reception center for the displaced housing about 75 families in Jenderes, Aleppo governorate
Aid update
Meanwhile, the UN reported that in Government-controlled areas in Syria, humanitarian partners have provided assistance to 324,000 people in February and 170,000 people so far this month, primarily in the most affected governorates of Aleppo, Hama, and Lattakia.
Every day since 9 February, an average of 22 trucks carrying aid provided by seven UN agencies have crossed from Türkiye into north-west Syria, using the three available border crossings.
“Our humanitarian colleagues warn about the lack of resources to replenish emergency stocks, with the main Humanitarian Response Plan for Syria being only 5.7 per cent funded,” said UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq, speaking during the daily media briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.
Aid partners report that their emergency response stocks have been depleted, putting operations at risk unless urgent funding is made available, he said.
He added that the Syrian healthcare system, which was already overwhelmed before the earthquake, is also at risk of collapse in some areas, depriving people in need of life-saving medical services.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said millions of children are at risk amid cholera outbreaks in Malawi and Mozambique. Both countries face flooding and damage caused by the cyclone, leading to death, displacement, and the devastation of infrastructure and social services. The after-effects have crippled access to health and other basic services.
One week after cyclone Freddy made landfall for a second time in Mozambique, risks are rising.
“We are now facing a very real risk of a rapidly accelerating cholera outbreak in Mozambique, a disease which is particularly dangerous for young children, especially those who are malnourished,” said Maria Luisa Fornara, UNICEF Representative to the country.
“UNICEF is working closely with the Government to urgently restore access to health, water, hygiene, and sanitation interventions to areas hit by the cyclone, and to prevent and treat cholera, but additional support is needed to meet the rapidly growing needs of children and families.”
Cholera cases quadruple
Thanks to preparation efforts by the Government of Mozambique, the number of deaths and people displaced by the cyclone appears to have been lower than for past cyclones of similar magnitude, UNICEF said.
Still, reported cholera cases have almost quadrupled – to almost 10,700 – since early February and more than 2,300 cases have been reported in Mozambique in the past week alone, the agency said.
Even prior to the cyclone, Malawi and Mozambique were among the countries most seriously affected by the cholera outbreak that has, in 2023 alone, resulted in more than 68,000 cases across 11 countries in the eastern and southern Africa region, the agency reported.
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths released $5.5 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to assist cyclone-affected people in Malawi, as the devastating toll of floods and mudslides in the country’s southern region continues to rise.
UNICEF estimated that 4.8 million children are in humanitarian need.
Visiting flood-ravaged communities on 16 March, UN Resident Coordinator for Malawi, Rebecca Adda-Dontoh pledged UN support.
“The destruction and suffering that I witnessed in southern Malawi is the human face of the global climate crisis,” she said. “The people I met with—many of whom have lost their homes and loved ones—have done nothing to cause this crisis. We, as the United Nations, stand in full solidarity with the people of Malawi at this tragic time and we call on the international communityto do the same.”
Broad ongoing efforts
Ongoing efforts funded by the CERF grant are addressing water, sanitation, and hygiene needs, shelter, vital non-food items, food, healthcare and the prevention of gender-based violence and child protection risks, she said.
“People are traumatized, and many have lost their homes, their belongings and their livelihoods,” Ms. Adda-Dontoh said. “In support of the Government-led response, through this CERF grant, we will aim to assist those who have been hardest-hit with life-saving and life-sustaining assistance.”
Malawi: facts and figures
The UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has been tracking developments in Malawi in the wake of tropical cyclone Freddy.
As of 18 March, nearly 363,000 people are displaced and sheltering in 505 camps across flood-affected areas.
Authorities report on Saturday the death toll has risen to 447, with at least 282 people still missing.
Some 75,000 hectares of cropland has been flooded, just as farmers were about to harvest the only crop of the year
With more air assets available, UN efforts are underway to reach locations that have been cut-off by road since 12 March.
Protection is a top response priority, given the heightened risks—including trauma, gender-based violence, child separation and trafficking—caused by the storm and associated displacement.
The appeal comes after a convoy of more than 100 trucks transporting food and other assistance was ambushed on Friday in Jonglei state.
Two contracted drivers were shot, one fatally, and another person died in a related road accident. A humanitarian worker was injured and is currently receiving treatment.
The attacked marked the latest in a series of escalating incidents targeting convoys and aid workers in the country, the UN humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) said on Monday.
More than 20 violent incidents were reported in January alone – more than double the number in January 2022.
“The humanitarian community is appalled by the continued attacks targeting humanitarians and their assets; these recurring acts of violence disrupt the delivery of life-saving assistance and must end,” said Meshack Malo, interim UN Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan.
Convoys temporarily halted
Due to the attack, the World Food Programme (WFP) has been forced to temporarily pause its convoy movements out of Bor, Jonglei state, for the second time in as many weeks. The UN agency is reassessing mitigation measures.
“This corridor is critical for our food prepositioning ahead of the rainy season when roads are inaccessible and more than one million people in Jonglei and Pibor rely on the humanitarian food assistance that we transport along this route,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, WFP Country Director in South Sudan.
She stressed that the safety and security of staff and contractors is of the utmost importance, adding that when attacks occur, “it is women, men, and children in desperate need of assistance who suffer the most.”
A child is being screened in a clinic in South Sudan
Dangerous work
South Sudan is among the most dangerous places in the world for humanitarians, according to OCHA. Nine aid workers were killed last year, and nearly 420 incidents were reported. Before this latest attack, three aid workers lost their lives in the line of duty.
This year, an estimated 9.4 million people in the country will need assistance or protection assistance.
Call for justice
OCHA said the humanitarian situation is worsened by factors that include endemic violence, access constraints, public health challenges, and such climate shocks as flooding and localized drought.
“While humanitarians continue to work tirelessly to provide the much-needed vital support, the continuation of violent attacks inadvertently hampers their efforts,” Mr. Malo said.
“We call on the authorities to take urgent action to improve security, to protect civilians, humanitarian personnel and commodities, and bring perpetrators to justice.”
Can the way we see ourselves in relation to the natural world create a greater sense of responsibility and stewardship towards nature? Global awareness about the degradation of nature, climate change and unsustainable resource use is increasing and our responses to these challenges need to accelerate. A new European Environment Agency (EEA) briefing, published today, discusses the way we see ourselves in relation to nature, how that can affect the actions we take towards sustainability, and how a new mindset could create a greater sense of responsibility.
The way humans have affected the Earth, its climate and ecosystems has prompted thinking about our time as a new geological period — ‘the Anthropocene’ — where our actions have lasting and potentially irreversible effect on the planet.
The EEA briefing notes that humans are deeply interconnected with and dependent on other life forms and ecosystems. However even well-intended policies and initiatives of the past have been based on the divide between ‘us’, humans, and ‘them’, the other species.
Achieving sustainability requires us to move from viewing nature as a source of capital to respecting its inherent value, the EEA briefing argues.
This could reframe our approach to policy responses in the EU and globally and help us address several challenges including overconsumption, inequality, power asymmetries, vested interests, and short-termism.
The EEA briefing is part of the ‘Narratives for change’ series, which brings new perspectives to the fore that could trigger change in the way we think and act towards sustainability.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague accused Putin and the children’s ombudsman of the President of the Russian Federation, Maria Lvova-Belova, of war crimes. An arrest warrant has been issued for both of them. The accusation is that thousands of Ukrainian children were deported to Russia and held in camps or handed over to Russian families, which in wartime is considered a war crime.
Maria Lvova-Belova is the wife of a priest who was ordained in 2019. This is the year his wife became a member of the United Russia party and was immediately elected a member of the party’s presidium.
Previously, Maria Lvova-Belova headed a foundation in Penza for the care of disabled and elderly people. Demonstrated great activity, widely covered by the media – took custody of more than ten disabled children, performed mass baptisms of sick children, to whom she became godmother. Opens care centers for the disabled, collects donations. She herself has five children and as many adopted children. In the local press, from the homes for the disabled, there are reports against her of abuses, for making loans in the name of the patients with whom her foundation has access, but they remain uninvestigated. She is also accused of being rude to children, with whom she communicates only when media and sponsors come, of often accepting orphaned children into her home with promises of adoption, after which they are returned to orphanages, etc. However, she creates a strong media image of a young leader, and the acceptance of church rank by her husband, until then a programmer by profession, contributes to her image as a church benefactor.
At the end of 2021, she was chosen by President Putin as the ombudsman for children’s rights, where she replaced the previous ombudsman, Anna Kuznetsova, also the wife of a priest.
The removal of Ukrainian children from the territories occupied by Russian troops began to be reported at the beginning of the war. Initially, the Russian side claimed that it was only orphan children, permanently placed in homes, who were taken to Russia and given for adoption to families, mainly in the Far East.
On March 8, 2022, Le Monde newspaper published an open letter from a collective of intellectuals and child psychiatrists: “Deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia has signs of genocide.” Among other things, the letter notes that “the forced resettlement of minors in Russia is part of Vladimir Putin’s project to eradicate the Ukrainian identity and nation.”
On April 13, children’s ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova stated at the All-Russian Forum “To live and be brought up in a family” that it is important for orphaned children from the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics to be placed in Russian families. In July, it became known that 108 children aged 5 to 16, taken out of orphanages in the DPR in Russia, were placed with adoptive families in Moscow, Moscow, Voronezh, Kaluga and Tula regions, as well as in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. All children received Russian citizenship under a simplified procedure. As of August 8 of this year, according to data from Lvova-Belova, about 400 orphaned children from the LPR can be adopted by families from 11 Russian regions. According to the ombudsman, these are only children who have lived in orphanages for a long time.
On May 30, Russian President Putin simplified the granting of Russian citizenship to Ukrainian orphans. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized that in this way “Putin practically legalized child abduction.”
On June 14, UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia, Afshan Khan, said that Ukrainian children taken to Russia after the start of the war should not be adopted by Russian families. From the point of view of international law, the forcible deportation of minors to an aggressor country is considered a crime against humanity.
According to official data of Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Center for Defense Management, as of June 18, 307,423 children were taken from Ukraine to Russia. Of these, two to five thousand are orphans, and the rest are taken “for rehabilitation, recreation in camps, evacuated to a safe place.”
According to the Ukrainian side, nearly 700,000 children have been deported to Russia to date. Many parents have no contact with their children, nor do they know their whereabouts.
In November 2022, a conference was held in Paris dedicated to the “illegal deportation of children from Ukraine during the full-scale aggression of Russia”. In it, the writer Jonathan Littel compares the methods of the Russians and the Nazis, who forcibly adopted tens of thousands of “Aryan” children from Poland.
The judgment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague states that “There are reasonable grounds to believe that Ms. Lvova-Belova is personally responsible for the aforementioned crimes, having committed these acts directly, jointly with other persons and (or) through the actions of other persons’. Maria Lvova-Beleva said for her part that she accepts the decision of the court in The Hague as recognition of her activity:
“It’s great that the international community appreciates the work we do to help children in our country, that we don’t leave them in a war zone, that we take them outside, that we create good conditions for them, that we surround them with loving and caring people. There were sanctions against me from all countries, even from Japan, now there is an arrest warrant, I wonder what will happen next”.