Ukraine teens highlight abductions as ambassador to Ireland tells of ‘almost 20,000 documented cases’
Sasha hopes that by talking to adults outside Ukraine somebody will ensure the safe return of his mum from Russian captivity.
The teenager himself narrowly escaped being forcibly transferred to Russia to join the fate of 20,000 documented cases of children abducted from Ukraine.
Sasha, and fellow Ukrainian teenager, Ciara, are in Ireland to tell their stories thanks to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Travelling with them is Daria Herasymchuk, advisor to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and also the country’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights and Child Rehabilitation.
Sasha was hit in one of his eyes by a fragment from a missile when living in Mariupol in southern Ukraine in March 2022. With no hospital intact, his mum decided to bring him to where remaining Ukrainian forces were, as they were the only ones with medicine.
Getting there they got separated and Russian forces took them. They brought Sasha to hospital but he didn’t receive any medical help and they refused his request to call his grandmother. But the resourceful boy managed to get a phone and contact her.
“I was worried [for her safety],” he told a meeting of the Institute for International and European Affairs in Dublin. “I was in occupied territory and the frontline was in between, but she managed to get me.”
Speaking through a translator, he said it was important for him to travel to other countries now and tell people about his country.
“I give them information about my mum, who has been in captivity for more than two years and I hope somebody will help me to return my mum back home.”
Ciara also lived in Mariupol with her father at the same time and had only just lost her mother in the war.
They were trying to avoid shelling by staying in different places. One day her father went to their balcony where he kept their food before moving on, when a missile hit.
Explaining what happened, Ms Herasymchuk said: “He never came back, he was never buried, because there was no body. Ciara was not even 12 at the time.”
Asked what life was like under occupation, Ciara said: “It was shelling mostly all the time.
She said that walking through Mariupol to get to safety she passed dead bodies: “I was thinking just about one thing when I was looking at these bodies: I was thankful that this is not me.”
Ms Herasymchuk said that “every day” children in Ukraine were being killed and wounded. She said Ukraine will “not stop — never” until they bring all abducted boys and girls home.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Ireland, Gerasko Larysa, said there were “almost 20,000 documented cases” of child abduction, but added that, according to Russian authorities, there were 744,000 Ukrainian children in Russia.
Ukraine, joined by Canada, are leading a campaign of 41 countries, including Ireland, to get the abducted children home.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s “Children’s Rights Commissioner” Maria Belova for “war crimes”.
