The kidnapping of children from Ukraine is the concern of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The fact that the Red Cross of Belarus has now admitted involvement is condemned.
The Chair of the Defense Committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, has called on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to do much more to clarify the fate of 20,000 missing people from Ukraine. At the same time, she sharply condemned the fact that the Belarusian Red Cross had brought children from Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine to Belarus, as the head of the organization Dmitry Shevtsov had admitted.
“The terrible reports about the despicable kidnapping of children by the Red Cross in Belarus raises the question of how independently the Red Cross is fulfilling its task in the current conflict. It is one of a number of reports about abuses and corruption in the work of the Red Cross, especially in the Ukraine war,” said the FDP politician to the German Press Agency in Berlin.
The umbrella organization of the Red Cross Societies distanced itself on Wednesday from the Red Cross Society in authoritarian Belarus. Shevtsov recently visited a Russian-held region in eastern Ukraine. The ex-Soviet republic of Belarus is a close ally of Russia in the war of aggression against Ukraine.
enlightenment and accountability
Strack-Zimmermann said it was also the task of the ICRC to clarify the fate of those missing during the war. “The organization has to visit prisons in Russia and look into what is happening to Ukrainian prisoners. The ICRC is the only institution that can even gain access. The victims rely on that. That makes the allegations all the more shocking.”
She also pointed out that Germany is the second largest donor to this organization. “We have provided around 25 million euros in 2022,” she said. However, doubts about the work of the ICRC have repeatedly been voiced in Ukraine.
“We and every victim expect the ICRC to immediately give an account of what it has done and failed to do over the past 17 months following Russia’s attack on Ukraine,” she said. “The Red Cross stands for rescue and support. In crises and wars for hope. This trust in this important institution must not be ruined.”
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement consists of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the 190 individual National Societies. Each organization has its own legal identity and role, all committed to common tenets of the movement.
Source: Stern
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