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Nearly two dozen orphans to be evacuated from shelled area in DPR — ombudswoman

According to Maria Lvova-Belova, the children will first be housed at a children’s home with the possibility of being adopted later by foster families

KRASNODAR, December 23. /TASS/. A plan is in place to evacuate 20 orphaned children from an area that was shelled in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) to Russia’s southern Krasnodar Territory, Russian children’s rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova said on Friday.

"Just this morning I received a call and was told that it is necessary to evacuate 20 small children, who have no parents, from the Donetsk People’s Republic. They are in the epicenter of shelling attacks. We agreed with the [Krasnodar Territory] governor that his region will accommodate these babies aged under four," she told journalists.

According to the ombudswoman, the children will first be housed at a children’s home with the possibility of being adopted later by foster families. The children will be evacuated within several days, she added.

"We plan to make systematic efforts to add the data about parentless children to the federal database of orphaned children to be adopted into families under Russian laws. But, this situation is an emergency. We understand that we must first save the children and evacuate them from the zones of combat operations," she noted.