Six more Ukrainian children return from occupation

On Wednesday, October 23, six more Ukrainian children, together with their mothers, returned from the temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia Regions, and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

The head of the President's Office, Andrii Yermak, announced this on the Telegram channel, the Ukrainian News agency reports.

"Today, six more Ukrainian children, together with their mothers, returned from the temporarily occupied territories of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia regions and AR Crimea as part of the BringKidsBack initiative of the President of Ukraine. These are children aged from 3 to 17 years old," Yermak wrote.

He said that these children had experienced difficult trials during their stay in the occupation.

"They were forced to study in Russian schools, where a large part of the educational process was filled with propaganda. In case of refusal, their parents were blackmailed by threats of deprivation of parental rights, illegal searches and interrogations. Some children had health problems, but could not receive the necessary treatment and medicines," said the head of the the President's Office.

According to him, one of the families was forced to hide so that the child would not have to attend a russian school, instead she continued to study at a Ukrainian online school.

"They lived in constant fear of being exposed, which could lead to the removal of the child or the illegal arrest of the parents," Yermak said.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, in September, Ukraine managed to return nine children aged 13 to 17, as well as a 20-year-old man, from the territories temporarily occupied by russia.

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the russian federation, some of the returned children were in the Oleshky Children's Boarding Home, later the occupation authorities took them to the occupied Skadovsk (Kherson Region) and russia.