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European Parliament calls for ICC arrest warrant against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko (Image: Twitter – @Europarl_EN / AP)
Amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, the European Parliament called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The resolution was passed on Tuesday after reports emerged that the Belarusian leader was allegedly involved in the abduction of Ukrainian children from the war-stricken areas. In the resolution, the Union’s legislative body stressed that Belarus under Lukashenko’s draconian regime bears responsibility for crimes committed against Ukraine and especially the children of Ukraine, Bulgarian news outlet Nova News reported.
On Monday, Telegraph UK reported that around 2,150 Ukrainian children as young as six have been allegedly moved to camps in Belarus since September 2022.
“With the International Criminal Court (ICC) already having issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, MEPs call on the ICC to consider a similar arrest warrant for (Alexander Lukashenko),” the Parliament said in a statement. The evidence of the alleged war crimes was submitted to the International Court by representatives from an opposition group National Anti-Crisis Management. “We want to show the world that such activity [being] organised precisely by Mr Lukashenko is a war crime,” said Pavel Latushka, the head of the opposition group National Anti-Crisis Management.
The body urged the body to take “all necessary steps at the international level” to ensure that the Belarusian leader, also touted as the last dictator of Europe, gets prosecuted. The statement also noted the eastern European nation’s growing subordination toward Moscow and pleaded to “decisively” support Belarus’s domestic operations. Belarus has been an ardent supporter of Russia in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The ICC has already issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The international body is already investigating Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights over the same issues. The two are already facing an ICC arrest warrant that was announced in March for the forced deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children into Russia. Meanwhile, the Ukraine government now estimated that more than 19,500 children have now been forcibly transferred since the war began in February 2022.
One of the documents obtained by The Telegraph UK deals with cooperation between the Russian and Belarusian state railway operators to organise the “transportation of the children of Donbas for rehabilitation to brotherly Belarus”. As per the British news outlet, the document was reportedly signed by Dmitry Mezentsev, the chairman of a Russian-Belarusian body and former Russian ambassador to the Eastern European nation. The document in question has been submitted to the ICC by the National Anti-Crisis Management as well. The Telegraph also noted that the children that are detained in such camps in Russia and Belarus are undergoing re-education and are beaten if they refuse to comply. In the past, the Belarusian President assured his Russian counterpart that the country would fund the “struggling” children to stay in Belarus. “This is how we started taking them here,” Lukashenko assured. “We help improve their health and they leave. They actually don’t want to leave,” he added.