Lithuania to host Ukrainian children for rehabilitation after their return from Russia
Illustrative photo: Lithuania will host Ukrainian children for rehabilitation after their return from Russia (Getty Images)
Lithuania intends to provide rehabilitation and psychiatric services to Ukrainian children who were forcibly deported to Russia and later returned to Ukraine, states Skirmantas Krunkaitis, adviser to Lithuania’s minister of health, according to LRT.
According to him, the first children are expected to arrive in Lithuania from Ukraine this fall.
"We are already at the technical stage, namely deciding when the children will be able to start traveling to Lithuania," Krunkaitis said.
He noted that this assistance for Ukrainian children was planned following Kyiv’s request for help.
According to Lithuania’s Ministry of Health, the children will undergo treatment in facilities providing medical rehabilitation services, and, to ease the consequences of their forced deportation to Russia, they will also receive support from psychiatric specialists.
"Children must meet certain rehabilitation criteria. This is either motor rehabilitation or respiratory system rehabilitation. The main criterion is the presence of medical indications. And most importantly, these are specific groups of children in Ukraine who were abducted and taken to Russia," the adviser to the minister added.
The minors will arrive in Lithuania together with their parents, guardians, or other accompanying persons. Their accommodation and meals will also be covered.
According to Krunkaitis, Lithuania plans to accept as many children as its medical facilities can accommodate, since the priority remains providing services and space for Lithuanian children.
"Preliminarily, we can say that we will accept about 15–20 children per month across all healthcare facilities in Lithuania," he added.
The adviser clarified that the plan is to host around 150 children per year. To provide the necessary services for this number of children, along with their accompanying persons, about 400,000 euros annually will be required.
Deportation of Ukrainian children
According to Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s parliamentary commissioner for human rights, since the start of the full-scale war, Russia has deported over 19,500 children from Ukraine.
At the same time, more than a thousand young Ukrainians have been successfully returned home, and the process is ongoing.
The deportation of Ukrainian children was the reason the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.
