The UN children’s rights body has raised the alarm over seven children injured since Kiev intensified its military operation in the east of Ukraine a month ago, as residential areas have increasingly come under fire.
Shells hit school, kindergarten in Slavyansk amid Ukraine military op (VIDEO)
The seven children UNICEF talks about were not looking for
trouble when they received their gunshot or shrapnel wounds. The
UN Children's Fund gives a couple of examples of what can happen
to a child in Ukraine, while the military operation is in full
swing there.
“In one case, a 15- year-old boy was wounded while in a car
at a checkpoint,” UNICEF says. “Currently a kid, who got
shot in the stomach and had his intestines damaged, is in serious
condition.”
The youngest of the injured children is only four years old,
according to the international organization. He got hit with
shrapnel “while taking a walk with his grandmother.”
Parents in Donetsk, the city at the forefront of the
anti-government movement in East Ukraine, rallied on Sunday
demanding that their children be protected from Kiev’s assault.
Their posters read "Save Donbass Сhildren.” An online
campaign under the same name has also been initiated via social
networks.
PLEASE SAVE THE CHILDREN OF DONBASS! ...DAMIT KINDER NICHT VON DER KIEW ARMEE ERSCHOSSEN WERDEN! pic.twitter.com/KXXTSeR36Z
— Raya (@jeanine_raya) May 30, 2014
Almost half of the children in Donetsk “have witnessed
violence or a horrible event,” according to a UNICEF
estimate.
Toddlers living in a Donetsk orphanage for kids with HIV/Aids are
definitely among them.
“The problem is that a jet flew over, dropped bombs, and now
all the children when they go out, they look at the sky asking,
‘Who will come? Will they shoot or not?’” Viktor Goncharo,
the orphanage’s director, told RT’s Paula Slier, who visited the
facility.
The orphanage is close to the airport where some of the fiercest fighting in the Ukrainian conflict
has taken place.
Another orphanage in eastern Ukraine’s Slavyansk was severely damaged by artillery fire on Sunday. Fortunately, all of the children were evacuated from the building following an earlier, less destructive, attack.
Around a thousand orphans find themselves in the war zone in eastern Ukraine, according to Pavel Astakhov, Russia’s ombudsman for children’s rights.
"Russian children’s facilities are ready to take and
accommodate all of the Ukrainian orphans,” Astakhov said,
adding that Russia has already helped evacuate 830 children from
the conflict zone in Ukraine and sent them to summer camps in
Crimea.
Worries over fate of the children are now part of Russia’s
draft resolution on Ukraine, according to
Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin.
“Every day civilians get killed, among them women and
children,” Churkin said. “Ukrainian military and
paramilitary forces impede the peaceful population, leaving
besieged cities or sending their children to safe places. Buses
of children are turned back.”
A bus carrying 38 refugees from Slavyansk, mostly women and
children, including toddlers, was stopped and seized at a border
checkpoint by Ukrainian guards last Friday. Those fleeing the
violence in Ukraine eventually managed to cross into Russia on
foot.
UNICEF said it was deeply concerned “by the recent escalation
of violence in Ukraine” and its “huge negative impact on
children.” The organization has called for an immediate end
to the violence and has urged "all groups involved to protect
children".