Twenty reunited Ukrainian and Russian families are in Doha to receive support as part of Qatar’s ongoing mediation efforts.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said 16 Ukrainian children “previously forcibly deported to Russia” following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine are recovering in Qatar after their release.
In a statement late Wednesday evening
He added that the children and their relatives were currently in the Gulf state “for medical, psychological and social recovery.”
A group of 16 Ukrainian children and their relatives are currently in Qatar for medical, psychological and social recovery. They had all previously been forcibly deported to Russia, but thanks to the mediation efforts of our friendly Qatar, they were released and reunited with their relatives.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Volodymyr Zelensky (@ZelenskyyUa) April 24, 2024
Zelenskyy’s statement came days after Qatar said 20 Ukrainian and Russian families had arrived in the Qatari capital to receive medical care and support in ongoing family reunification mediation efforts.
They were accompanied by Russian and Ukrainian officials, who also met with Qatari mediators.
On Wednesday, Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova announced an agreement with Ukraine to exchange nearly 50 children displaced by the invasion.
“For the first time in a face-to-face format, we held talks with the Ukrainian side. “29 children are supposed to go to Ukraine and 19 to Russia,” Lvova-Belova said.
But the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, later declined to confirm the information, telling news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the two countries “have no direct communication on this case.”
“Improving the process”
In a report from Doha, Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra said Qatar’s mediation efforts began last year when Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani visited Russia and Ukraine, where he was asked to mediate the family reunification process.
Ukraine accuses Russia of illegally taking more than 19,000 of its children since the invasion began in 2022, of which fewer than 400 have been returned. Russia denies this accusation and says it removed children from war zones for their safety.
The fate of children in Ukraine has been extremely sensitive since the beginning of the war. Some of the children’s parents were killed, while others were separated from their caregivers by the fast-moving front lines early in the invasion. Some lived in Ukrainian orphanages in the territories then occupied by Russia.
At an upscale hotel in Doha, Qatari Minister for International Cooperation Lolwah al-Khater met with guest users of past exchange programs on Wednesday.
“Today was a milestone for us in Qatar in this mediation process,” she told Al Jazeera. “We had 20 reunited families from both Ukraine and Russia, with both governments also well represented. We hope to further advance and continue this process.”
Asked whether this could be a starting point for bringing the warring parties together to discuss political issues, al-Khater said that the focus of mediation efforts from the start has been on humanitarian issues.
“From there we can also discuss other portfolios,” al-Khater noted. “Humanitarian and political issues are closely intertwined, so we hope this will open up more venues in the future.”
Lubinets told AFP that, in addition to the return of Ukrainian children, his delegation and Qatari mediators also discussed the issue of Ukrainian civilian prisoners held in Russia and the “potential role of Qatar as a mediator between Ukraine and the Russian Federation in this matter.”