Koper - Koper criminal police have completed an investigation into allegations of violence against Ukrainian children at an orphanage in the town of Slavina near Postojna, but have not confirmed any reasonable suspicion of a crime having been committed, the Koper Police Department said on Friday.

The Postojna Social Work Centre received several anonymous reports in July alleging that two Ukrainian child caregivers, who arrived in Slovenia with the orphans in May, physically abused some of the children.

The ministry in charge of social affairs immediately visited the orphanage, and the media said the two caregivers would be suspended and replaced by Slovenian ones.

However, the police investigation, carried out in collaboration with the Social Work Centre and other institutions, has not confirmed the allegations.

The police have now sent their report to the Koper State Prosecutor's Office.

Cvetka Kernel, headteacher at a secondary school in Postojna who coordinates the orphanage project, said the anonymous reports did not explicitly name any caregiver.

She said that the two mentioned caregivers had not been suspended for violence but they had left Slavina.

There are 20 kids at the facility in Slavina, nine teachers, a doctor and the manager of the Luhansk 2 orphanage from the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk.

The Ukrainian staff are being helped by three Slovenian caregivers and another three aides.

The kids have been divided into three groups. Two of them have already turned seven and started going to school in Slovenia.

Kernel said that talks are under way with the Education Ministry to include ten children into Slovenian kindergartens.

She confirmed that the Ukrainian orphanage had filed a criminal complaint for defamation against unknown persons before the police investigation ended.