KHERSON, Ukraine — Within hours after Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, the medical team at a children’s hospital in the south began quietly preparing how to preserve the infants.
Staff at the children’s regional hospital in Kherson city began falsifying orphans’ medical records to make it look as though they were too unwell to transfer. This was done in response to suspicions that Russians were kidnapping and transporting kids to Russia.
“We intentionally entered false information indicating the infants were ill and could not be moved,” stated the chief of critical care, Dr. Olga Pilyarska. “We feared that (the Russians) would discover the truth, but we resolved to preserve the children at whatever cost.”
Throughout the duration of the conflict, Russians have been accused of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territory so that they might be raised as their own. According to local officials, at least 1,000 children were taken from schools and orphanages in the Kherson region during Russia’s eight-month occupation of the territory. Their whereabouts remains unknown.
However, community members who risked their lives to conceal as many children as possible are credited with preventing the disappearance of even more youngsters.
On November 22, 2022, orphaned children sleep in cribs at the maternity department of the children’s regional hospital in Kherson, Ukraine.
AP
At the hospital in Kherson, 11 abandoned infants were diagnosed with fictitious illnesses so they wouldn’t have to be transferred to an orphanage where they would be given Russian passports and maybe taken away. One infant experienced “pulmonary hemorrhage,” another had “uncontrollable convulsions,” and a third required “artificial ventilation,” according to Pilyarska.
Volodymyr Sahaidak, the head of a center for social and psychological rehabilitation on the outskirts of Kherson in the hamlet of Stepanivka, falsified documents to conceal 52 orphaned and vulnerable children. The 61-year-old placed some of the youngsters with seven of his employees, while others were transported to distant relatives, and some of the older children remained with him, as he stated. “It appeared like my children would be taken from me if I did not hide them,” he stated.
However, shifting them around proved difficult. After Russia invaded Kherson and a large portion of the surrounding territory in March, they began separating orphans at checkpoints, compelling Sahaidak to devise novel methods for transporting them. In one instance, he forged medical paperwork indicating that a group of children had been treated and were being transported by their aunt to meet their mother, who was nine months pregnant and waiting on the opposite side of the river, he claimed.
22 November 2022: Hospital employees at the children’s regional hospital maternity ward in Kherson, Ukraine.
AP
While Sahaidak was able to repel the Russians, other youngsters were not so fortunate. In the orphanage in Kherson, where the hospital would have sent the 11 infants, approximately 50 children were reportedly evacuated in October and taken to Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, according to a security guard at the institution and neighbors who spoke with The Associated Press.
“A bus with the letter Z (a mark painted on Russian cars) arrived, and they were hauled away,” said Anastasiia Kovalenko, a resident of the neighborhood.
According to residents, a local assistance organization attempted to conceal the children in a church at the beginning of the invasion, but the Russians located them some months later, returned them to the orphanage, and eventually evacuated them.
The Associated Press reported earlier this year that Russia is attempting to place hundreds of Ukrainian youngsters with Russian families for foster care or adoption. The Associated Press discovered that officials illegally transported Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territory, lied to them that their parents didn’t want them, exploited them for propaganda, and provided them with Russian families and citizenship.
25 November 2022: A view of the courtyard of the Kherson regional children’s home in Kherson, Ukraine.
AP
According to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research organization, Russian authorities are waging a purposeful depopulation campaign in seized regions of Ukraine and deporting youngsters under the cover of medical rehabilitation and adoption programs.
The purpose of transporting children to Russia, according to Russian authorities, is to shield them from violence. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denied reports that the nation is detaining and expelling children. It has been observed that the authorities are hunting for relatives of orphaned children still living in Ukraine in order to identify chances for their return home.
Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian advocate for children’s rights, personally oversaw the adoption of hundreds of orphans from Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine by Russian families. She asserts that some of the youngsters were offered the chance to return to Ukraine but declined. Her claim could not be independently confirmed.
On November 25, 2022, in Kherson, Ukraine, a playhouse in the courtyard of the Kherson regional children’s home contains toys and a doll.
AP
Aaron Greenberg, regional adviser for Europe and Central Asia for child protection at UNICEF, stated that until the fate of a child’s parents or other close relatives can be verified, each separated child is presumed to have living close relatives, and an assessment must be conducted by authorities in the countries where the children are located.
Local and national security and law enforcement are searching for the relocated youngsters, but they do not yet know what happened to them, according to Galina Lugova, the chief of the military administration in Kherson. “We do not know what has happened to these youngsters… “It is an issue because we do not know where the youngsters from orphanages and our educational institutions are,” she remarked.
Currently, most of the responsibility for locating and returning them home falls on the locals.
During the month of July, the Russians transported fifteen youngsters from the front lines in the adjacent district of Mykolaiv to the rehabilitation center in Sahaidak, and subsequently to Russia, he added. Using the assistance of foreigners and volunteers, he was able to locate them and transport them to Georgia, he stated. Children are likely to return to Ukraine in the next weeks, according to Sahaidak, who refused to offer any specifics about the operation for fear of compromising it.
For some, the possibility of Russia expelling children has had unanticipated consequences. Tetiana Pavelko, a nurse at the children’s hospital, was concerned in October that the Russians might take the infants with them as they began to withdraw. The 43-year-old woman, unable to carry her own children, hurried to the hospital and adopted a 10-month-old daughter.
Pavelko stated, wiping tears of delight from her cheeks, that she had named the infant Kira after a Christian martyr. She stated, “She helped them, cured them, and performed several miracles.”
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