LVIV (VG) These children were hastily evacuated from the Luhansk region. A few days later, the orphanage they had fled to was peeled off. In the shelter in Kharkiv sits another group of children who have not managed to escape.

When the invasion became a fact on the morning of February 24, Chief Doctor Katerina Dontsova, 68, was surprisingly calm. He had evacuated the orphanage before. 40 children, between two months and four years, were put on a bus and taken to the train station.

It was the start of a two-day journey west through Ukraine. The children were put to sleep in the carriages of the train, which then drove west. At one point, they stood for seven hours waiting for a new locomotive.

The windows are blowing in the wind

Shortly after the children arrived in Lviv, in the west of the country, they had to see
the pictures of how the orphanage they fled to has been peeled off
only three or four days after they left.

In one of the walls there was a big hole. In one room, windows were blown into the room.

– Glasses were strewn where the cot had previously stood, Dontsova explained while showing the picture.

The orphanage in Severodonetsk, located in the Luhansk region, is preferably in the east
in Ukraine, is just one of hundreds of children’s institutions that
evacuated since the war began.

SOS Children’s Villages estimates that 70,000 children are in orphanages or
boarding schools in areas where there are now competitions in the field. Among others are
about half were evacuated (3133) or returned to families
sinuses (about 30,000).

– Every day we try to evacuate children from “hotspots”, said
program director Darya Kasyanova of SOS Children’s Villages of Ukraine.

He also led a network of volunteers and assisted the Ukrainian authorities in the evacuation.

Waiting for the green light

When VG spoke to him on Saturday, efforts were made to evacuate around 100 children
from a sanctuary in the country’s northeastern Kharkiv.

– We are ready, but waiting for a decision from the authorities. Working days
we have to consider whether it is safe enough, Kasyanova said.

He said that one of the evacuation buses from the Donetsk region in the east
the country was hit by a grenade shot a few days ago. Only the bus remains
wounded. Crisis center for women and children in the Luhansk region for a long time
the east of the country was evacuated one morning and fired upon that same day, he said
theirs.

A neighbor from the crisis center confirmed to VG that the building was bombed. It was not clear whether the attack was targeted. VG has not been able to verify information about the bombing near the bus through other sources.

Poverty

Volunteers bring diapers, powdered milk and cloth to the orphanage. The older children lay down and slept while VG was there, while three employees tried to follow up on 15 children between three months and a year and a half. Usually they will be more employees.

Ukraine has a higher proportion of children in institutions than any other European country.

About 80 percent of children in institutions in Ukraine do not
orphans. Some were temporarily placed in institutions because
poverty. Others have been sent there because the authorities believe their parents
not feasible.

For 32 children in the temporary Severodonetsk orphanage
placed there by the parents, an important crossroads occurred when they
turned four years old.

If they are not adopted, they continue on to boarding schools and schools. That
The first option is preferable, explains Chief Dontsova, who
he said over the years has managed to adopt close to everyone. But now do
the war adopted by the paper mill, stopped.

Two of the children will be adopted by the court on the 23rd and 24th.
February. Now the future adoptive parents are not allowed to pick them up,
Dontsova said.

Airplane alarm

The children from Severodonetsk, who have now been evacuated to Lviv, must be executed
times without windows, or in the basement, every time the airplane alarm goes off. When VG visited them on Monday, the plane’s alarm had just gone off for the fourth time today.

This city has only been hit by a rocket once so far. Then it becomes
Military repair facilities near the airport were hit.

– We were told that Lviv is the safest place to visit, but now
we understand that no place is safe, says Dontsova.

On Tuesday, VG again contacted SOS Children’s Villages in Ukraine.
Evacuation of children in Kharkiv cannot be carried out
At the moment. They’re still in the shelter, they say
organization.