One of the poorest countries in Europe, Moldova has shown tremendous generosity in welcoming more than 471,000 refugees from Ukraine, the highest per capita influx to neighboring countries. But it appears Roma may be excluded from this hospitality, Human Rights Watch research shows.

(Berlin) – Moldovan authorities are deliberately housing most Romani refugees separately from others fleeing the war in Ukraine, in a manner that constitutes unequal and discriminatory treatment, Human Rights Watch said today. Amid pervasive discriminatory attitudes toward Roma, government authorities have permitted and, in some cases, directed staff and volunteers to deny Romani refugees housing at government-run facilities.

Ukraine temporarily suspended international adoption for the period of the war, but is grateful to partner countries that give asylum to Ukrainian children, said the Verkhovna Rada, Commissioner for Human Rights Liudmyla Denisova.

CHISINAU, Moldova — Angelina Leonidovna Kovach decided to leave the Ukrainian city Kharkiv in the second week of March, emerging from her basement refuge into a country under fire. She crossed from Ukraine into neighboring Moldova with a group of her relatives — all members of Ukraine's Roma minority.

Siret, a small Romanian town that borders Ukraine, is no stranger to attention. Just after the 1989 revolution, foreign journalists flocked there to reveal its grim story to the world. Under the Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu’s brutal regime, which forbade birth control and exacted appalling privations on its people, thousands of children were abandoned in inhumane state orphanages.

The first-ever meeting of the Pan-European Mental Health Coalition, a new network of organizations and individuals aiming to transform mental health systems across the WHO European Region, gathered to discuss ways to support the mental health of people in Ukraine.

This is a summary of what was said by UNICEF's Regional Advisor - Child Protection for Europe and Central Asia, Aaron Greenberg – to whom quoted text may be attributed - at a press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

There are claims that thousands of disabled Ukrainian children have been forgotten and abandoned in institutions that can’t look after them. The human rights organisation, Disability Rights International, has carried out an investigation and found children with severe disabilities tied to beds in overrun children’s homes unable to cope.

Millions of children across Ukraine have had to flee their homes since the war there began. For some, it’s an even harder journey, because they don’t have their parents with them. One children’s home on the eastern front line had to move all of their children hundreds of miles across the country to keep them safe. Among them is 11-year-old Angelina, who’s now trying to make a new life in the western city of Lviv.

More than 5m people have fled the Russian invasion, and many have carried with them trauma and loss. That has been compounded by the economic stress of living abroad, and by family separation—Ukrainian men aged 18-60 must stay and help defend their country. The World Health Organisation (who) estimated in March that at least half a million refugees were suffering from mental-health issues.