"It Was Heartbreaking": Ukraine Children Return After Alleged Deportation
NDTV
"They said we will be adopted, that we will get guardians," she said. "When they first told us we will stay longer we all started crying."
More than 30 children were reunited with their families in Ukraine this weekend after a long operation to bring them back home from Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea, where they had been taken from areas occupied by Russian forces during the war.
Mothers hugged sons and daughters as they crossed the border from Belarus into Ukraine on Friday after a complex rescue mission involving travel across four countries.
Dasha Rakk, a 13-year-old girl, said she and her twin sister had agreed to leave the Russian-occupied city of Kherson last year because of the war and go to a holiday camp in Crimea for a few weeks. But once in Crimea, Russian officials said the children would be staying for longer.
"They said we will be adopted, that we will get guardians," she said. "When they first told us we will stay longer we all started crying."
