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.”
Dasha’s mother Natalia said she had travelled from Ukraine to Crimea via Poland, Belarus and Moscow to get her daughters. Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula has been occupied by Russia since 2014.
“It was terribly difficult but we kept on going, we did not sleep at nights, we slept sitting up,” she said, describing her journey to the camp.
“It was heartbreaking…
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