“They said he was going to a camp”: How mother managed to bring back her abducted son from Kherson

Alla is the mother of 13-year-old Danylo, a student of Kherson School No.

27. In October 2022, in Kherson, which was still occupied at the time, the school principal suggested that the students go to a camp in Crimea, saying that it was dangerous to stay in the city because the Russians were staging provocations against the civilian population. For the safety of her son, Alla agreed.

She managed to see Danylo the next time only six months later, Mykola Kuleba, former children's ombudsman and director of the charity organisation Save Ukraine, reports. The director who also collaborated with Russian occupiers reported that the children would stay in the summer camp for two weeks, but no one returned them after this period.

Alla with her son Danylo
Photo: Mykola Kuleba Danylo was initially in the Crimean Druzhba camp.

"There, every morning began with the Russian national anthem, and every week the children were given "conversations about important things" about the fictional history of Russia, in which Kherson was always Russian, and the Russians were its liberators," Mykola Kuleba said.

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He added that the children were intimidated and bullied at school and were forbidden to speak Ukrainian. If the rules were violated, "educational conversations" were held with the children. Three months later, Danylo was transferred to the Luchistyi camp in Crimea.

"They fed them terribly, saved on heating and forced Ukrainian children to clean up the garbage on the beach. The children were threatened that they would soon be given to Russian foster families," the former children's ombudsman notes. Alla, who had been trying to contact the camp administration for six months to find out information about her son, turned to the Save Ukraine organisation for help.

Later, when the woman went to the camp to pick up her son, she was interrogated several times. "She was interrogated by FSB officers for 14 hours at the Moscow airport, and then, in Yevpatoria, she was forced to give an interview [saying she was] 'grateful for the rest' to the propaganda TV channel Russia 1", Mykola Kuleba reported. He added that women with their children were allowed to enter the camp one by one.

At the same time, they were psychologically pressured, so "saying something contrary to the camera would mean losing the child forever." Alla and her son have returned and are in Ukraine now.
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