Wiltshire charity says 100,000 Ukrainian orphans are 'being forgotten'
Some children in institutions have been left to fend for themselves
Last updated 7th Mar 2022
A global children's charity, founded by a couple from Wiltshire, is calling on Ukraine, Russia and the United Nations to recognise Ukrainian state-run orphanages as humanitarian safe spaces.
Hope and Homes for Children says many of Ukraine's 60,000 orphanage staff have fled to be with their own families - leaving up to a 100,000 children (including 50,000 disabled children) to fend for themselves.
Large numbers of orphanages have also been hit by Russian bombs, including one in Vorzel, in the Kyiv region, last week.
Hopes and Homes for Children have volunteers working with social workers in Ukraine.
Speaking to Greatest Hits Radio, their CEO, Mark Waddington, explained how the situation deteriorated in Dnipro, where they supported the emergency evacuation of 70 children:
"We have a team on the ground in Dnipro, in central Ukraine, and they have been providing food, blankets and so on to vulnerable families and also to children, particularly abandoned children who have no parental care. We moved them into an emergency reception centre.
"The situation became so difficult with relation to security earlier this week that we relocated them to a new safer place.
"These children were already anxious. They were already in confinement, suffering from neglect, suffering abuse in some circumstances.
"We placed them in a reception centre and begin to create some normality, some routine and reassurance for them, and then that is disrupted again. It's an entirely unacceptable situation that children should be on the frontline of conflict like this."
Trapped in a war zone
The charity predicts that in the coming days, many orphanages will totally run out of food, water and medicine.
"We are left with a situation in which children are caring for children, sometimes very often young children, left to their own devices."
"Food supplies are dwindling, sometimes access to water is on and off. The same for electricity. It's an entirely unacceptable situation that we have 100,000 children in these public buildings across Ukraine in the middle of a war being overlooked."
Plea to recongise state-run orphanages as humintarian centres
Hope and Homes for Children are appealing for Russia, Ukraine, as well as the EU and the UN, to urgently recognise Ukrainian state-run orphanages as humanitarian centres, so that aid can reach these children more easily.
The charity believes it will also help bring some of the staff back.
"If they are recognised as humanitarian safe spaces, then there is a greater chance that they will not come under fire."
"We're asking the actors in this conflict to recognize those orphanages as safe humanitarian spaces. They must open up safe humanitarian corridors to ensure that those orphanages can be resourced with the basics that they need: food, clothing, energy. It's the middle of winter in Ukraine, it's very cold.
"We've particularly asked the Ukraine government to work directly with the UN system, to provide the coordinates of these orphanages so all the locations can be placed there and that they are avoided in any form of military strike at all costs.
"Not only do these children need the staff to clean, bathe and feed them, but with this war going on around them, there's no caring adult to actually moderate it to help make sense of it, to help keep them calm and keep their wellbeing at a reasonable level."
Appeal
The charity has launched an emergency appeal for children trapped in orphanages.
The money donated supports a team of five volunteers in Ukraine, who provide aid to children and vulnerable families in Dnipro, as well as emergency response in neighbouring countries.
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