Up to five thousand children were taken out by Russians from Mariupol, - Zelenskyi
Up to 5,000 children were deported by Russians from Mariupol
Volodymyr Zelenskyi said this in an interview with CNN, as reported by Censor.NET with reference to the Office of the President.
"Several tens of thousands were forcibly deported to the Russian Federation. We don't know what happened to them, where their documents are, we don't know. And among them are several thousand children. We know this, but what happened to them, like health, where they are - so far there is not 100% information about it... We have heard that 5,000 children have been deported from this region to Russia. Because they (Russian troops. - Ed.) didn't allow them to enter the territory controlled by Ukraine. So we don't know what happened to these children. This issue is very complex and difficult. There is a lot of information that we have to check and which we don't know for sure," Zelenskyi said.
The President stressed that it is also impossible to say for sure how many people remain in Mariupol and how many have died.
"The remaining civilian population ... we also don't know until the end. There are data that there are about 50-60 thousand. Other data say that 100 thousand. Now there is information that somewhere 20-30 thousand civilians could die, which they stayed there," Zelenskyi said.
According to him, it is generally difficult to talk about casualties among the civilian population due to the fact that cities such as Kherson, Berdyansk, Mariupol, and Volnovakha are blocked by Russian troops.
