A Russian official says the state has taken temporary custody of 10 children, including eight who are HIV-positive, after their father was accused of physically abusing one of them.
The 10 children are from a family that includes eight foster children, four adopted children, and one biological child of the parents, the Interfax and TASS news agencies cited Tatyana Barsukova, deputy head of the Moscow labor and social protection department, as saying on January 13.
Authorities took them into custody after kindergarten staff discovered bruises on one boy and witness statements suggested he had been struck by his father, the reports cited Barsukova as saying.
Barsukova said the eight HIV-positive children had been placed in a medical facility and that the children's mother was being allowed to see them all in temporary custody.
The online news outlet life.ru cited the mother as saying that the children had been HIV-positive when the couple adopted or took them in as foster children.
Earlier reports had cited an unidentified spokesman for Russian children’s rights commissioner Anna Kuznetsova as saying that 12 children, all of them believed to be infected with the virus that causes AIDS, have been taken away from their adoptive parents.
Russia registered its millionth HIV-positive citizen in January 2016, more than twice the number in 2010.
The rate of new HIV infections has increased by 133 percent since 2006, according to a report issued this month by the European Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization (WHO).
