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Source URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61442387

Excerpt: Since Russian forces were pushed back from Kyiv at the end of March, the bodies of more than 1,000 civilians have been discovered in the Bucha region - many hastily buried in shallow graves. The BBC has learned that around 650 people were shot in what a senior police official has described as executions. Sarah Rainsford has been investigating what happened at a children's summer camp - now being treated as a crime scene. It is easy to miss the killing spot at first in the gloom. But in a cold, damp basement on the edge of the woods that made Bucha a popular get-away spot before the war, five Ukrainian men were forced to their knees and shot in the head. To the right of the entrance, there are stones coated in blood that has turned dark red. Lying among that is a blue woollen hat with an exit hole in one side and its rim soaked in blood. In the wall, I counted at least a dozen bullet holes.

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Source Link to watch the video:  https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-61325277

There are claims that thousands of disabled Ukrainian children have been forgotten and abandoned in institutions that can’t look after them.

The human rights organisation, Disability Rights International, has carried out an investigation and found children with severe disabilities tied to beds in overrun children’s homes unable to cope.

The BBC has been given exclusive access to an institution in western Ukraine, where disabled children from the east have been left by their carers who fled to neighbouring countries.

Reporting by Dan Johnson

Filmed by Jonathan Dunstan

Produced by Ruth Clegg and Natalie Higgins

Click Here for the BBC Live News Feed

Summary

• Some 4.8 million of Ukraine's 7.5 million children have been displaced since the start of the war, the UN says
• The coming period is "crucial" for Ukraine, Western officials say. President Zelensky says Russia is concentrating tens of thousands of soldiers for its next offensive in eastern Ukraine
• The US and Britain say they are looking into reports that chemical weapons have been used by Russian forces attacking Mariupol
• Mariupol's deputy mayor Serhiy Orlov says Ukrainian forces are holding out against Russia in the besieged city
• Austria's chancellor has become the first EU leader to meet Vladimir Putin since the start of the war
• Karl Nehammer describes the talks at Putin’s residence outside Moscow as "direct, open and tough"
• Indian PM Narendra Modi says he has repeatedly appealed to Putin and Zelensky to hold direct talks

Almost two-thirds of Ukrainian children have fled their homes: UN

Nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion, the UN's children's agency UNICEF said on Monday.

The UN has also verified the deaths of 142 youngsters, although they have warned the actual number is almost certainly much higher.

Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s emergency programs director who just returned from Ukraine, said having 4.8 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children displaced in such a short time is something he had not seen happen so quickly in 31 years of humanitarian work.

"Of the 3.2 million children estimated to have remained in their homes, nearly half may be at risk of not having enough food," Fontaine told the UN security council.

He warned the situation was probably worse in cities like Mariupol and Kherson, where there was no water and sanitation services and the supply of food and medicine had been disrupted.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s UN ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, claimed Russia has taken more than 121,000 children out of Ukraine and reportedly drafted a bill to simplify and accelerate adoption procedures.

Fontaine said there was so far "no evidence" of such accusations, but that UNICEF would investigate the matter.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60975912

The discovery of bodies scattered along a street in a Ukrainian town left by Russian forces drew widespread condemnation in the West on day 39 of the invasion.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused Russia of "despicable attacks" on Ukrainian civilians in Bucha and another town, saying his country would not rest until justice was served for the victims.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the images of corpses in Bucha as a "punch to the gut" and the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said an independent investigation was urgently needed.

Ukraine's president, Volodomyr Zelensky, accused Russia of committing genocide.

Russia's defence ministry countered by suggesting the scenes in Bucha had been faked by the Ukrainian government.

Fighting continued, with Russia launching missiles at the Black Sea port of Odesa and other targets in central and southern Ukraine, and reported Russian shelling of the city of Kharkiv.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/12/children-going-missing-amid-chaos-at-ukraine-border-report-aid-groups-refugees

Cases of human trafficking and exploitation also reported as more than 2.5 million refugees try to escape fighting

Children are going missing and cases of human trafficking are being reported by aid groups and volunteers along Ukraine’s borders amid the chaos of the refugee crisis triggered by the Russian invasion.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60894142

Ukraine has accused Russia of forcibly relocating thousands of civilians from Mariupol, the strategic port city devastated by Russian shelling.

Russia is housing an estimated 5,000 at a temporary camp in Bezimenne, east of Mariupol, seen in satellite images.

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 40,000 had been moved from Ukraine to Russian-held territory without any coordination with Kyiv.

A Mariupol refugee, now in Russia, said: "All of us were taken forcibly".

In the midst of this horrible war organizations like UCAF are getting resources to the local churches. Click READ MORE below to see all the photos.

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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/schwarzenegger-russia-ukraine-war-message/627100/

The strength and the heart of the Russian people have always inspired me. That is why I hope that you will let me tell you the truth about the war in Ukraine.

By Arnold Schwarzenegger

I have a message for my Russian friends, and for the Russian soldiers serving in Ukraine: There are things going on in the world that have been kept from you, terrible things that you should know about. But before I tell you about the harsh realities, let me tell you about the Russian who became my hero.

Visit the link to see the photos of the tragic war against children.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60814913

In his hospital bed, little Artem stares into space. He clutches a small yellow toy tractor but says nothing as specialist nurses monitor his condition. The Russian shell that blasted shrapnel into his belly also badly wounded his parents and grandparents as they tried to flee Mariupol. A victim of Putin's war and he's not yet three years old.