The United Nations this week warned of what it said were credible reports of Ukrainian children being kidnapped and transported into the Russian Federation, with claims surfacing also of older civilians enduring the same.
Ilze Brands Kehris, the assistant secretary-general head and of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said during a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday that "there have been credible allegations of forced transfers of unaccompanied children to Russian occupied territory, or to the Russian Federation itself," the international organization reported.
Kehris also noted reports of "a significant number of cases of civilians who were displaced to the Russian Federation," including "a dozen cases where members of the Russian armed forces ordered civilians in Mariupol to leave their homes or shelters and brought them to territory in Ukraine under their control, or to the Russian Federation."
The office has further reportedly received reports of "arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment and enforced disappearance" of Ukrainian civilians suspected of having ties or sympathies to anti-Russian forces.
