MOSCOW, April 1. /TASS/. Russian Investigative Committee investigators have questioned more than 12,000 evacuees from the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and recognized as victims of abuse nearly 9,000 of them, the IC’s press-service said on Friday following an on-site meeting IC chief Alexander Bastrykin held in Rostov-on-Don.

"According to reports from the IC offices in the Rostov, Belgorod, Voronezh, Bryansk and Kursk regions and Crimea their investigators have questioned more than 12,000 people to recognize nearly 9,000 of them, including 2,000 children as victims of abuse," the IC said.

Bastrykin said that in conducting investigative activities, the status of victims of abuse was applicable not only to those who suffered injures or lost relatives, but also whose homes were ruined, forced migrants and those who experienced other material and moral problems.

"The chiefs of territorial IC offices were instructed to go ahead with interviewing the evacuees, to recognize them as victims of abuse and provide the necessary assistance, including legal services," the IC said.