WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is “deeply concerned” by a meeting between a leading United Nations official for children and Russia’s ombudsman for children’s rights, who is wanted by the world’s permanent war crimes court, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday.
Maria Lvova-Belova, who is accused by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor of the war crime of deporting hundreds of Ukrainian children to Russia, said on her website last week that she held a working meeting with Virginia Gamba, the special representative of the UN secretary-general for children and armed conflict.
“We are deeply concerned that a senior UN diplomat met with a fugitive subject to an ICC arrest warrant for committing war crimes against children,” Miller said at a press briefing. “Such conduct undermines our shared commitment to protecting children in conflict zones.”
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis; Editing by Chris Reese)
