No one wants to see children suffer during war. Unfortunately, the Russo-Ukraine war has been so unjust and ugly that it has engulfed an entire generation in the war-ravaged country and the Donbass region. When we first arrived in Kyiv from the border city of Lviv, the central station was packed with people, as all the railway stations in the post-Soviet states doubled as bomb shelters.
The families sat close to each other to beat the cold, although it was hot in the station. Kids are running around with no clue why they are outside when their bedtime has passed. Some were no longer happy to be displaced from their warm homes and beds.
Many Ukrainians waited to take the train to Lviv and then cross to neighboring European countries. Crying children were hugging their father and brothers who had to stop to fight the Russians. In Ukraine, male citizens over the age of 18 were not allowed to leave the country as the country is at war.
This war has shocked an entire generation, which had not seen violence, let alone a full-fledged war. We met young students who were volunteering with the aid centres, some others helping to build camouflage nets for the forces, some volunteering at the media centre. But, young children were in homes and shelters. The parents didn’t want to risk bringing them out amid the bomb sirens. Schools bombed an empty, abandoned, few, look.
Metro stations were converted into shelters. A child was in a carton with his toys, and a crowd of journalists were taking pictures from the subway window. He smiled at the camera to see what was happening.
A child in a carton with his toys on the train.
Another little girl who was sitting with her dog. When asked what happened, she said, ‘I am very scared. We hear bombs everywhere.”
A girl with her dog in the train said that she is very scared.
The capital city of Kyiv was relatively untouched. When I traveled from Russia to the Donbass region I saw the true extent of the destruction. Mariupol, a major port city that is a part of Donetsk, was in a dilapidated condition.
Mariupol is unrecognizable today. As one enters the city, you will notice that the Metro shopping center has been converted into a humanitarian aid center by the Russians who are sending food, water and basic supplies to the city. There are long queues to get food.
Long queues to get food at Mariupol.
We went further into the city and entered the colonies where people are living in the basement of every building to avoid the bombings. Most of the buildings that looked like burnt/bombed were already empty as people went to the basement for safety.
We entered one of the buildings with no electricity, no heating, dinghy. To the left was a small room with a table and two benches that filled the entire room. An eight/nine year old girl herself was playing Scrabble. When I asked her what she was doing, she looked up and smiled, looked at this foreign face strangely and said (in Russian), “Do you want to play?”. I told him that I would come back and play.
A little girl playing Scrabble.
The horrors of war are visible in disintegration. There was no water in the pipe on the dirty faces of the children. But the smile and laughter were ironic and the heart was melting. We went down the stairs to a room where mothers with babies were sitting. Little children who were unaware of their surroundings and difficulties were playing in their mothers’ laps. It became difficult to source baby food and supplies. Mothers worried about how the next supply would be. But, as the days passed, Russian aid machinery became more well oiled and supplies were reaching most of Mariupol.
Outside there were children who were being kept busy with artwork – making books and coloring etc. With the school destroyed, they had nothing to look forward to. In the absence of school and stability, many older children did not know what to look forward to. Christina, a college student, said, “No one wants their homes to be destroyed. We don’t care whether we are part of Russia or Ukraine. we want peace. This violence must end.”
Lost, empty eyes amidst the shelling, the bombardment, the destruction. The sound of gunfire was not so far away, but that didn’t stop the kids from continuing their game. One of them came to me with something written in his sketch book. It reads “hi” in Russian.
On the other side of the building, some children were playing, while some distance from the colony was a mass grave, graves of loved ones buried in the courtyards of houses and corpses scattered in the streets and a colony lying in the yard.
In the city of Donetsk, a house was completely destroyed by shelling from the Ukrainian side in a colony in the center. When we went there, the six-year-old son was sent to the neighbor as he was in shock.
Children are suffering unimaginable trauma. Losing limbs or being injured in attacks, leaving their homes and becoming refugees in foreign lands, families breaking up with men left behind to fight wars, with no schools or future to see. No child deserves this.
‘Childhood in War’ refers to children who have been affected, disabled or injured during and after armed conflicts.
While world leaders are focused on material outcomes, the greatest collateral damage or outcome of conflict is the ‘war child’. The Russo-Ukraine war will end with a whole generation of ‘war children’ for whom the road to recovery is going to be a long, painful, difficult journey.
Death and destruction cannot be generalized. But, a war is an extraordinary event that destroys and dehumanizes anything and everything it touches.