Children Taken from Parents in Spain Return to Russia

MOSCOW, April 23 (RIA Novosti) - Two children, whose parents were deprived of parental rights by Spanish authorities, returned to Russia on Tuesday, Russian child ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said.

“The children, taken from their Russian families in Spain, returned to Moscow,” Astakhov, who accompanied the Russian children on their flight from Spain, wrote in his Twitter account.

He said the children, a six-year-old girl and an 18-month-old boy were taken from their families last year. Both children lived in Spanish orphanages before Spanish authorities agreed to return them to their relatives in Russia.

Upon the arrival, the girl was taken to her relatives, who sought her return from Spain. The boy will be taken to the central Russian of Lipetsk.

Astakhov said that the parents will have an opportunity to meet their children in Russia, because their deprivation of parental rights is valid only in Spain.

“We will insist in principle that the children, whose Russian parents were deprived of their parental rights abroad, be returned to their homeland,” the child ombudsman said.