With children's homes being hit by cluster bombs, babies sleeping six to a cot and Ukraine's vulnerable youngsters living in constant fear of a nuclear attack, The Sunday Mirror has launched its Orphan Appeal.
Aimed at providing a safe route out of Ukraine for the 100,000 orphans currently placed in 700 children's homes, the national newspaper's campaign is also hoping to save the terrified youngsters from the associated threats of beatings, rape, torture and trafficking, as keeping a watch on their movements becomes increasingly difficult. With that in mind, the Reach plc title is assisting the work of British charity Hope and Homes for Children amid the Russian invasion of the country.
Before Vladimir Putin ordered the attacks on Ukraine, it already had the highest number of orphans - half of whom are disabled - of any European nation and that number is growing every day as more and more children lose both parents to the war. Only 2,500 have been evacuated so far with Hope and Homes having managed to move 100 to safety from Dnipro and Vorzel.
But the process of evacuating itself is not straightforward amid the relentless shelling and, in Vorzel, the orphanage has been struck by an illegal Russian cluster bomb. The need for charitable intervention and assistance cannot arguably be laid out more starkly than in this heart-breaking quote from 12-year-old orphan Sasha, who said: "I worry Putin will fire a nuclear bomb – he will destroy the world."
Labour leader Keir Starmer and Bond actress Olga Kurylenko, who has Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian ancestry, are backing the Orphan Appeal, as is ex-forces chief Lord Dannatt and details of how to donate to the charity can be found at the bottom of this article. Food and water is running out and other key items that the charity would welcome include clothes, medicine, pillows, sleeping bags, torches and tape for windows to protect the children from shattered glass.
The children's home are experiencing acute staff shortages, too, with 60,000 having sought sanctuary with their own families. In Dnipro, Hope and Homes aide Daria, 40, explained how the horror unfolded there, saying: “When the first rockets fell it was a massive shock.
"We said, ‘Children, today your life changes. Rockets could fly in at any moment, soldiers could walk through the door’.
“We started to very quickly instruct them how we should go down to the basement during an air raid. We told them, ‘A war has begun, we must be nice to each other, we shouldn’t argue’.
"We told them make sure you finish every morsel because we don’t know when the next delivery of food will come. Even now we can’t tell them when they’ll next eat.
“On the third night we heard bombs nearby. I walked into the dorm and said ‘Children, explosions’ and they quickly and orderly went to the basement."
Commenting on the potentially equally frightful consequences related to the absence of a central tracking system for the children, Hope and Home's local director Halyna, who is based in Kyiv, said: "Orphanages, boarding schools, baby homes and hospitals are being bombed. I’m used to the sound of constant explosions and sirens.
“The bridges have been blown up near my home to prevent any tanks crossing, so it’s difficult to help everyone we would want. But we expect many evacuees in Donetsk and Lugansk and Kharkiv city to need our support in the coming days.
"Most children won’t be able to be evacuated as it’s too unsafe. And I’m worried the few who can be got out are not being monitored properly while moving over borders.
"They’re disappearing. Some are even being taken overseas. We could be looking for children like them all over the world for many years to come.”
Charity CEO Mark Waddington, 53, – a veteran of similar work in Afghanistan and Iraq – is directing operations from the Ukraine-Moldova border and he added: “Many children have some sort of family in Ukraine. The key is to keep them close because the further they go, the more dislocated they become from those families.
“My big worry is the unaccompanied children, who will have fewer resources. Some will be destitute.”
The charity has been working in Ukraine for 25 years, with the aim of placing children with extended family or foster parents. Bond girl Kurylenko, 42, is a patron and she pointed out: “These children are stranded without staff, food and water while under attack from bombs and bullets.
"I struggle to comprehend the suffering of millions of families, including my own, caught up in this war. So imagine the suffering of children who are totally alone.”
Former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Dannatt is another patron and has been associated with the charity for 30 years. He declared: “Children are being left behind in the war zone to live feral in bombed-out orphanages.
“I’ve seen refugee children separated from family and thrown into dangerous orphanages in foreign lands. We cannot allow history to repeat itself in Ukraine. Children belong in families.”
How to donate
Text HOPE 5, HOPE 10, HOPE 15 or HOPE 20 to 70300 to donate £5, £10, £15 or £20 to Hope and Homes for Children. Or go to www.hopeandhomes.org
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