The Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine Maryna Lazebna said that as of today, 4,894 children from 179 institutions of institutional care have been evacuated. Of these, 2,522 children were relocated within Ukraine, and 2,372 children from 116 institutions were relocated abroad.

In particular, among the evacuated children are those from:

• 14 facilities under the supervision of the Ministry of Health,

• 75 institutions under the supervision of the Ministry of Social Policy,

• 85 institutions under the supervision of the Ministry of Education and Science.

Within Ukraine, most children are relocated to:

• Zakarpattia region - 24%,

• Lviv region - 24%,

• Ivano-Frankivsk region - 15%,

• Dnipropetrovsk region - 9%,

• Chernivtsi region - 8%,

• Volyn region - 5%.

As for evacuation abroad, children from vulnerable categories from Ukraine are in 12 foreign countries. Most children from institutional care institutions were admitted by:

Poland - 71%,

Germany - 13%,

Romania - 4%,

Czech Republic - 2%,

Italy - 2%,

Lithuania - 2%,

Spain - 1%.

"All the evacuated children are safe, they are provided with housing, food, medical and educational services. We have the unprecedented support of international partners.

But we also have questions. Some heads of institutions where children stay around the clock refuse to relocate them to safe places, do not coordinate their actions with regional military administrations and central executive bodies.

This is not an issue that can be debated. Children need to be protected. As a result of discussions on this issue with all key officials in the country responsible for the protection of children's rights, today I addressed a letter to the Prime Minister with proposals to resolve this situation.

There are some cases when, unfortunately, it is impossible to evacuate children from institutions that are in the zone of active hostilities. We are keeping these cases under special control to ensure evacuation as soon as possible," commented Maryna Lazebna.

The Minister said that since the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine from institutions with 24-hour stay, 30,582 children have been returned back to the care of parents or other legal representatives:

• 30,078 children - from institutions under the supervision of the Ministry of Education and Science,

• 95 children - from institutions under the supervision of the Ministry of Health,

• 409 children - from institutions under the superivision of the Ministry of Social Policy.