Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
KIDS’ ANGUISH
STANDING in the rubble of her school, 13-year-old Anna recalls the day the bombs fell.
“We were playing outside when the shelling first started,” she tells me. “We had to run for our lives.”
As she talks, pals risk their lives nearby playing football on some of the most mine-laden fields on the planet.
This is not Syria, nor even Palestine. This is the forgotten war on Europe’s doorstep, one which has claimed the lives of 3,000 civilians – so far.
It is Krasnohorivka, one kilometre from the front line where Vladimir Putin’s Russia has waged a four-year battle along Ukraine’s eastern border.
The Donbas region became famous in 2012 when its capital, Donetsk, hosted the England football team for two Euro 2012 group games.
Later this year budget airlines will start £19.99 flights to whisk UK holidaymakers to Ukraine on three-hour flights.
Yet hundreds of children have already died along this front line – and for many of the 220,000 youngsters still caught up in Putin’s conflict, there is barely an echo of a normal childhood.
“Before the conflict this was a happy place,” says Anna’s principal, Elena Mikhatskaya.
“The town was so beautiful. You’d hear children laughing – the school was alive. Now the only sound is silence.”
Silence, that is, but for the constant backdrop of fighting between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed rebels.
When the fighting was worst here, more than half the population fled – around 13,500 people. Several thousand are still to return.
For four years Krasnohorivka has had no gas or electricity. In winter, temperatures can drop to minus 20.
Last week, drinking water for 600,000 people in th region was cut off after an attack on the town’s filtration plant.
Mortar shells and Grad missiles, like those that destroyed the school and the hospital, can be heard for miles around.
Mrs Mikhatskaya said: “It breaks my heart, the damage to these children will last a lifetime.
“The conflict has imprisoned them.”
Save the Children, who offer life-saving support on the ground, say one in four youngsters suffer psychological trauma. Margaux Dessus, the Programs Development and Quality Manager, said: “A few months ago we saw a case of a child who’d picked up a piece of unexploded ordnance and tried to dismantle it.
“He lost both his hands.
“We’ve seen children aged 12 or 13 who are so desperate they are forced into ‘survival sex’, prostituting themselves for food. This is on Europe’s doorstep.”
Further north, another village lies directly on the front line. Its precise location must be kept secret as residents fear reprisals for speaking out. Dozens of pupils must cross the line here just to get to their
school. This one, at