WATCH: Ukrainian children reunite with families after 'long and difficult' journey from Russian 'summer camps'

After the International Criminal Court (ICC) slapped Russian President Vladimir Putin with an arrest warrant for committing war crimes in Ukraine and unlawfully deporting children to Russia, more than 30 kids were finally reunited with their families after a month-long operation to bring them back home.

It was an emotional moment for parents in Ukraine as mothers hugged their sons and daughters as they crossed the Belarusian border on Friday following a complex rescue operation that involved bringing back children from Russia-occupied Crimea.

Testimonies from the rescued children highlight the hardships faced by them as they were held in Russia against their will. A 13-year-old girl named Dasha Rakk said that she and her twin sister had to overstay in a holiday camp in Crimea, as per the instructions of some Russian officials, after they fled from the now-occupied city of Kherson.

She said, “They said we will be adopted, that we will get guardians. When they first told us we will stay longer we all started crying.”

Dasha’s mother Natalia recalled the tedious journey she had taken to reunite with her children. She said she had to travel from Ukraine to Crimea via Poland, Belarus and Moscow to get her daughters.

“It was terribly difficult but we kept on going, we did not sleep at nights, we slept sitting up,” she said.

Natalia added, “It was heartbreaking to look at children left behind who were crying behind the fence.”

Kyiv estimates nearly 19,500 children have been taken to Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea since Moscow invaded in February last year, in what it condemns as illegal deportations.

However, Moscow has denied the accusations of abducting Ukrainian children and says they were transported to Russia for their own safety.

Mykola Kuleba, the founder of the Save Ukraine humanitarian organisation that helped arrange the rescue mission, said, “Now the fifth rescue mission is nearing its completion. It was special regarding the number of children we managed to return and also because of its complexity.”

Russian officials took the children to what they called “summer camps” from occupied parts of Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Kherson regions.

Kuleba added, “There were kids who changed their locations five times in five months, some children say that they were living with rats and cockroaches.”

With inputs from agencies

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