MOSCOW, August 12 (RIA Novosti) – Russians calling the Russian Civil Chamber hotline have expressed their readiness to host children from southeast Ukraine whose parents died in the military conflict, a member of the chamber, Yulia Zimova, said Tuesday.
“Over the past month, the hotline of the Russian Civil Chamber to help residents of southeastern Ukraine received dozens of calls with offers to host children whose parents were victims [of the conflict in Ukraine] or died in military action. The proposals come from Moscow, the regions of Tomsk, Chelyabinsk, and Stavropol and the Republic of Crimea,” Zimova was quoted as saying by the Civil Chamber’s press service.
The official has also sent letters to Russian Human Rights Commissioner Ella Pamfilova, Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov and the head of the Spravedlivaya Pomoshch (Fair Aid) nonprofit group, Elizaveta Glinka, informing them that Civil Chamber is ready to help find housing for orphans.
The number of refugees fleeing from southeastern Ukraine to Russia has increased dramatically since June due to intensive fighting between the independence supporters and Kiev government troops. Russia’s Civil Chamber launched a hotline to help thousands of displaced Ukrainians.
Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said earlier that there are currently 1,223 orphans in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, but that Kiev authorities are ignoring the calls of Russian human rights activists to evacuate children from the war zone.
Kiev launched a special operation in eastern Ukraine in mid-April to crackdown on independence supporters protesting the results of the February regime change. Moscow has repeatedly urged Ukrainian authorities to immediately stop the punitive operation and seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
According to a report by the mission of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a total of 1,367 people had been killed since the start of the special operation in eastern Ukraine and nearly 117,000 of Ukrainians were forced to flee their homes and cross into neighboring Russia in search of shelter.
