More than 15,000 children died in the state hospital-homes of communist Romania, says IICCMER
The Institute for the Investigation of Crimes of Communism and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) said that over the last five years, it has investigated the deaths of 2,207 children in four of the 26 facilities for disabled and mentally ill children that operated in the Socialist Republic of Romania until 1990.
The IICCMER estimates that more than 15,000 minors died in these 26 facilities between 1967 and 1990, according to a press release quoted by Agerpres. These children died due to starvation, improper living conditions, abuse, and a lack of medical care.
The highest mortality rate was recorded in the facility of Cighid, where from its establishment in October 1987 to April 1990, 160 children died out of a total of 183 admitted.
The institute is providing this information in the wake of an initiative that was recently announced in the European Parliament. Entitled Child abuse in Europe: addressing, compensation, and prevention, it brings together 19 countries with the purpose of recognizing and stopping child abuse in Europe.
Between 2017 and 2018, IICCMER filed multiple criminal complaints with the Prosecutor's Office of the High Court of Cassation and Justice regarding the commission of the crime of inhuman treatment of children housed in facilities during the communist regime, in the ‘hospital-homes’ of Păstrăveni (between 1966 and 1990), Sighetu Marmației (between 1973 and 1991), Siret (between 1980 and 1989), and Cighid (between 1987 and 1990).
The investigations were based on solid archival documentation, and the identification of witnesses, victims, and possible perpetrators.
Although the hospital-homes housed minors that they officially declared to be irrecoverable, this seems to overall have been untrue, and there are numerous documented cases in which children who were physically and mentally perfectly healthy or had only recoverable physical disabilities, orphans, or children from disorganized families were assigned to such centers by state institutions. Here, a large number of those admitted met their end, and those who survived were left with severe physical and mental trauma.
IICCMER informs that it will be continuing its series of special investigations of these facilities where such inhuman acts took place.
"There was a great need for such a pan-European initiative to further support the need to investigate this category of victims who suffered from the communist regime," said Daniel Șandru, Executive President of IICCMER about the Child abuse in Europe: addressing, compensation, and prevention initiative.
"The horrors and terrible traumas that took place in these hospital homes and led to the deaths of so many souls cannot be forgotten or minimized. We are talking about helpless children who were knowingly subjected to these atrocities," he stated.
He also addressed the Romanian judicial authorities: "Taking into account the investigations carried out so far by the IICCMER, which reveal a number of more than 15,000 victims, but also the fact that the real number of survivors of these hospital-homes is not yet known, I ask the justice authorities to promptly examine the criminal complaints filed by the Institute in 2017 and 2018."
And explained that "beyond this, our intention is to support the efforts to recognize the deceased and the survivors of these heinous facilities as victims of the communist regime."
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