UAZA thanks South Africa for backing UN call to repatriate Ukrainian deported by Russia

The Ukrainian Association of South Africa (UAZA) has extended gratitude to the South African government and President Cyril Ramaphosa for voting in support of the United Nations General Assembly resolution that demands the repatriation of Ukrainian children who were forcibly deported by Russia.

The UAZA’s volunteers and community members have for years been knocking on doors, organizing marches, meeting with government officials, and pushing for South Africa to take a clear stand. 

Yesterday’s vote, they say, shows that those efforts were heard. 

“The South African government and President Ramaphosa have been constant in demanding that Ukrainian children return as an important confidence-building measure for a long-lasting just peace for Ukraine,” said UAZA.

UAZA President Kateryna Aloshyna highlighted that the vote reflects South Africa’s leadership on children’s rights.

“We are enormously grateful — to the government, to President Ramaphosa, and to ordinary South Africans who marched with us, prayed with us, and wrote letters asking for these children to come home,” she said. “This resolution gives us hope that at least some of them may finally return.”

Support for returning the children has been growing across South African civil society. Thirteen human rights organizations issued a joint call for their immediate return. Children’s rights experts from both South Africa and Ukraine drafted a policy brief urging support for the UN measure, and Archbishop Thabo Makgoba publicly endorsed South Africa’s “yes” vote.

The resolution, adopted on Dec. 3 with backing from 91 countries, calls on Russia to provide the names of all Ukrainian children it has taken and ensure their immediate, safe, and unconditional return. It also demands an end to forced transfers, family separations, changes to children’s citizenship, and any form of political or ideological indoctrination.

According to UAZA, the resolution is a crucial step — not just in diplomacy, but in the very real effort to reunite Ukrainian families separated by the war.