The head of the Belarusian Red Cross, Dzmitry Szaucou, admitted that the organization he leads is involved in deporting children to Belarus from the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, the independent Belarusian portal Zierkało reported on Wednesday.
The portal referred to the activist’s statement for the Belarusian state television.
Appearing in a report from Donbass, Shaucou said that he was outraged by accusations against Belarus of abducting children. He assured that children “are coming to his country for treatment” and added: “The Belarusian Red Cross has taken, is taking and will take an active part in this.” He argued that his organization wanted children from Ukraine to “forget about the horrors of war.”
The Belarusian TV report concerned the accusations against Minsk of participation in the practice of deporting Ukrainian children; The propaganda material was shot in the occupied Ukrainian cities of Lisichansk and Mariupol. The journalist spoke to some children who were in Belarus and their parents and asked for confirmation that the stay was voluntary and that all children had returned home. “In this way, the propagandists – in their opinion – proved that Belarus helps children from the occupied territories,” reports the Zierkało portal.
He also notes that during his previous trip to the occupied territories of Ukraine, Szaucou was wearing an outfit with the letter Z sewn on the sleeve, a symbol of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is a sign used by Russian troops and pro-war propaganda.
Meanwhile, the Belarusian oppositionist Pavel Latushka, who previously reported on the involvement of the Lukashenko regime in deporting children from Ukraine, told the independent Russian TV station Dozhd that some of these children did not return from Belarus. Their trail ends in Russia. Łatuszka did not specify the number of children who disappeared in this way after deportation. Earlier, the oppositionist reported that over 2,100 Ukrainian children from at least 15 cities occupied by Russia were forcibly deported to Belarus with the consent of the authorities in Minsk.
In June, Łatuszka announced that he had submitted materials on this subject to the International Criminal Court. He expressed his hope that the ICC would issue an arrest warrant for Lukashenka, as the court had done in the case of Vladimir Putin. The ICC found the Russian dictator responsible for war crimes involving the unlawful deportation of children from occupied Ukraine to Russia.
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