Parents defy evacuation orders, bring children back to Toretsk amid frontline threats

Since the forced evacuation began on Oct. 23, 2023, 235 children from 188 families remaining in the in the community have been taken to safer places. The last three children were evacuated on June 29.

“Every day, our head of the children’s evacuation service, the National Police and the State Emergency Service have been trying to convince families to evacuate,” he said.

“Iryna Vereshchuk (Ukraine’s Reintegration Minister) even gave guarantees about the possible rehabilitation of these children abroad. We were all ready to help this family adapt to safer areas so that they would experience the minimum inconvenience associated with the move. And we succeeded! They decided to leave on their own.”

However, there were cases when parents did not even let their children out of their apartments to avoid being noticed.

“Unfortunately, it happened that when parents officially left through the checkpoints, we made the appropriate notes, but then they secretly bypassed the checkpoints and secretly brought their children back,” Chynchyk said, noting that there were “isolated cases” when some families were forcibly evacuated “for the second, third, and even sixth time.”

“Parents do not realize the responsibility and the threat of Russian missiles, airstrikes and shelling.”

Another 80 children were evacuated between June 24 and July 2, with priority given to children and people with limited mobility.

However, some children may still be in the community, although they were reported to have officially left.

This follows an earlier report by Ukraine’s General Staff on July 3 about significant intensification of Russian forces in the Toretsk sector.