Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
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LEFT in care homes and now threatened by war, thousands of already vulnerable Ukrainian child refugees are at risk of being trafficked as they are uprooted by fighting across the country. Many remain unaccounted for.
“There was a big problem of forced labour in the orphanages before the war (and) trafficking for the sex industry,” said Eric Rosenthal, director of Disability Rights International in Washington.
Now there is an even greater danger “of children being targeted, children being left behind, children being abandoned”.
There are more than 100 000 children in orphanages, boarding schools, or homes for the disabled in Ukraine, the highest number in all of Europe, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, at least 8 000 minors in care have been taken abroad or relocated within Ukraine, according to official data.
Some children have already been transferred to orphanages in Romania and Moldova, where there is “a big trafficking problem”, Rosenthal said.
Thomas Hackl, from Caritas Romania, said his team at the Romania border recently stopped a suspected trafficker mingling among refugees trying to take two young Ukrainian girls to Italy. | AFP
RUSSIA’S defence ministry said a fire on board the Moskva missile cruiser, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, had been contained and that measures were being taken to tow it back to port.
The ministry said the blaze broke out after ammunition blew up on board. The cruiser’s main weaponry had not been damaged and its crew had been evacuated on to other ships in the Black Sea. It said it was still trying to establish the cause of the incident.
The ministry had said on Thursday that the Soviet-era ship had been badly damaged by the fire. | Reuters
Rwanda
RWANDA has inked a multimillion-dollar deal with Britain to host asylum-seekers and migrants to the UK as part of the British government’s bid to crack down on illegal migration.
“Rwanda welcomes this partnership with the United Kingdom to host asylum seekers and migrants, and offer them legal pathways to residence” in the African nation, Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta said in a statement released during a visit by British Home Secretary Priti Patel on Thursday. | AFP
BILLIONAIRE Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for about $41 billion (R600bn), just days after rejecting a seat on the social media company’s board.
Musk’s offer price of $54.20 a share, which was disclosed in a regulatory filing on Thursday, represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s April 1 close, the last trading day before the Tesla CEO’s more than 9% stake in the company was made public.
Twitter’s shares jumped 12% in premarket trading. | Reuters