war in ukraine
The advance of the Russian offensive fills the hospitals with victims – many of them, children with severe amputations from Mariúpol – and with frustration to the doctors, who demand more forcefulness from the West
For Natalia Gala, a psychologist at the Zaporizhia Regional Pediatric Hospital, there is a recurring situation that overwhelms her. “A very young child who still doesn’t know that her mother has died and that she calls her non-stop. Mom, mom, mom… For us he is overwhelming. Since the war started in 2014, we used to experience such situations in the center from time to time, but since February this year, these types of cases are happening on a daily basis.”
On the ground floor of the medical center, children’s voices are not heard or colored paintings are seen. With the windows boarded up with sandbags to prevent a rain of glass in the event of an attack, the gloom overwhelms and symbolizes the tragic atmosphere of the clinic where minors injured in the savage siege of Mariúpol and in the offensives of other neighboring areas are admitted. where Russian troops occupy towns with blood and fire with the ultimate goal of securing a strip of territory that connects Donbass with Crimea.
The devastating result of the ambitious military offensive, widespread throughout the territory, is creating a generation of children marked by war and by the incomprehensible loss of family members at the hands of a country that was always considered a brother. “It is very difficult to explain to children, just as it is difficult for us adults to understand. All Ukrainian children are being marked to a greater or lesser extent. A colleague told me the case of an injured girl that her aunt wanted to entertain to distract her. “What do you want?” she insisted. “Chocolates, candies, toys?” The little girl, in tears, answered: «I want something that you cannot give me, I want peace».
mutilated children
On the fourth floor, where 10 seriously mutilated children remain, mostly from Mariúpol, psychologists say that at night the cries overlap, composing a tragic symphony. “The elders are angry, they hate everything around them. The little ones isolate themselves by getting into their inner world. They are not going to be happy in the short or medium term, and you have to accept it, ”says the specialist. The challenge, she insists, is to explain the situation to them. “With teenagers it is easier, we are very honest with them. In the case of the little ones, we created a narrative of good guys and bad guys, where an innocent child is attacked by a monster who, in the end, is defeated”, explains Gala. The objective is to give them hope now that their lives have changed radically, either because they have lost immediate family members, because they have been mutilated or because they are living through the most traumatic experience of their lives.
“A few days ago, a car arrived that had managed to get past Russian checkpoints, coming from the occupied town of Berdyansk,” explains Lina, volunteer coordinator at the Metro wholesale supermarket in southern Zaporizhia. «All the windows were broken by an explosion. In the back, between packages and bags, two small children were traveling. In the front seat, a grandmother in her 80s who jumped up and walked out saying, “It’s okay, at least we’re alive. There is freedom here.”
At the makeshift clinic in the hypermarket, a pediatrician explains how shocked children flee the invasion. «Usually children are children, naughty, playful, daring… Here they arrive inert, downcast, silent, they don’t behave like children. A 9-year-old girl came to us and cried for hours. Her mother told us that she had witnessed the death of a relative. She was inconsolable ».
The children admitted suffer severe amputations and spectacular traumatisms that are often redirected in other Ukrainian or European hospitals. The physical trauma is superimposed on “the severe inability to adapt to normality. Any noise overwhelms them, “says Gala. “The treatment of these children can take years. It is very difficult, especially when there are amputations and deaths of family members, to explain to them that something like this can happen to good, innocent people who have done nothing to deserve it. We focus on giving them back the will to live, the hope for the future, because many have lost it », she continues. For adults, the expert emphasizes, it is easier to develop psychological techniques that allow them to rebuild their lives. In the case of the smallest, we concentrate on the surgical intervention and subsequent therapy before turning to the psychological wound.
Seriously injured
50% of the children admitted, explains the director of the center Yuri Borchenko, have been seriously injured in Mariupol while the other half come from the areas occupied by the Kremlin troops in the Zaporizhia region, where 80% of the territory already It is in Russian hands. “They all have severe injuries, serious amputations, shrapnel or shots in their bodies, also amputations caused by cluster bombs and mines. The most serious case was due to a mine, causing nine fractures to the child. He lost both arms and both legs and has a serious head injury ». Another of the toughest cases is that of a six-year-old boy who was fleeing from his family from Mariúpol to Berdyansk when the bridge they were crossing was blown up by an explosion. “His mother died on the spot and he was seriously injured.”
“It is not about sending him to Europe to be saved, but about Europe helping us save the next ones,” Borchenko says. The frustration of the medical staff is notable. On the one hand, they are struggling with the inability to care for the huge number of victims trapped behind Russian lines. “Under normal circumstances, the center would be full of patients, but since the occupants do not allow many injured people to leave their premises, they cannot reach our clinic,” he continues. Now there are 54 patients admitted, of which only a dozen have been injured during the fighting. On the other hand, the contradiction between the outpouring of solidarity and the advance of the bloody Russian campaign overwhelms the doctors who implore action to end the conflict.
“Everything you see here is a consequence of the EU and NATO’s betrayal of Ukraine,” emphasizes the director. “If action had been taken when Putin gave NATO an ultimatum, all these children would not have been maimed.” Burchenko does not want more means, but political determination. “It’s not that he’s disappointed, it’s that I hate the West. Our country is being destroyed, there are thousands of deaths, millions of people have been left homeless. And what does the West do? Send us blankets and diapers? Stop sending us blankets to cover our dead, because it is not ethical.
#Stop #sending #blankets #cover #dead