Another 16 children have been brought back to Ukraine from territories temporarily occupied by Russia.

Source: Bring Kids Back UA initiative

Details: One of the rescued children is 15-year-old Polina, who miraculously escaped the occupation with her aunt. Her mother, father and older brother have been in captivity for over two years. The Russians fabricated cases against them and sentenced them to more than 15 years for “espionage”.

Two sisters, 14-year-old Valeriia and 7-year-old Alina, also left the temporarily occupied territories.

“They still remember the night when their house burned to the ground. The flames destroyed everything, even their documents. The family was left with only the clothes on their backs,” say human rights activists.

15-year-old Viktoriia also returned to Ukraine, having lived with her parents for the last three years, almost entirely locked up within four walls. They only left the house in extreme cases so as not to attract the attention of Russian soldiers. Every day, the family lived in fear that someone would knock on the door and take the children away by force.

Human rights activists also told the story of 10-year-old Myroslav, whom the Russian authorities tried to take away from his parents.

"Representatives of the occupying ‘child welfare service’ demanded that guardianship be formalised. They blackmailed the boy’s mother and claimed that the boy could not live with his biological parents for fabricated reasons.

Fortunately, all the rescued children and families are now safe, receiving psychological support, restoring their documents and learning to live a normal life again," the publication says.

Background: Earlier, three teenagers who had lived in Russian-occupied territories for more than three years were brought back to Ukraine.

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