Lives in a trap, lives broken. They are those of Ukrainian men, women, elderly and children, overwhelmed by an inexplicable war that looks no one in the face. A war that kills innocent victims with every passing day. “16 children died and 45 were injured in four days” reports Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday morning. According to the United Nations, “at least 102 civilians, including seven children, have been killed since Thursday and 304 injured”, the day the Russian invasion began. But we know that the numbers under these circumstances are always provisional and that the real death tolls could be much higher.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, at the opening of the Human Rights Council in Geneva explains that “most of these civilians were killed by wide-ranging explosive weapons, including artillery fire heavy, rocket launcher and air raid. The actual numbers are considerably higher. ‘ For Save the Children, attacks on schools in Ukraine are endangering the life and future of the country’s 7.5 million children. And dozens of children have already been killed in the fighting, which also involved the bombing of educational facilities throughout the country.
Among them is Alisa Hlans, eight years old next May. She was in class when a rocket containing cluster bombs hit the building she attended in Okhtyrka. Badly injured, she was immediately transported to the hospital, but her condition was too serious and, within twenty-four hours, she died. This was reported by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Irina Venediktova, with a message on Facebook, accompanied by an invitation: “We need peace”.
According to what is reported by the Bbc, among the identified victims there is also little Polina, who attended the last year of elementary school in Kiev. According to local authorities, she and her parents were shot dead by a Russian sabotage group on a street in the northwest of the capital. Polina was with her family when their car was targeted: her brother and sister were taken to the hospital. Vladimir Bondarenko, deputy mayor of Kiev, took the photograph of the little girl.
Always according to the Bbc, an unidentified boy was killed by a mortar shell or missile fired from Russian positions while on a bicycle in the Ukrainian town of Chuhuiv, in the eastern region of Kharkiv. Some videos released on social media in recent days show images of a corpse on the asphalt, covered by a cloth. In eastern Ukraine, in Gorlovka, however, two teachers lost their lives after a missile hit a school where they were working, Save The Children reported on February 25.
Other stories come from southern Ukraine: five members of the same family died last Thursday, the first day of the war, when Russian troops approached the city of Cherson from Crimea. The Ukrainian police chief, Yevhen Zhukov, told the details of the attack: the family, according to what is learned, would have tried to escape the advance with two cars, but failed to escape the enemy fire near Nova Kakhovk. Among them also a 6-year-old girl, Sofia, and a newborn just a few weeks old.
In two villages not far from the Russian border in south-eastern Ukraine, the country’s ethnic Greek population was also affected by the tragedy of the war. On Saturday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke with “sadness and anger” about the deaths of 10 Greek-born civilians killed by Russian air strikes near the port city of Mariupol. Two villages were affected: Sartana, on the outskirts of Mariupol, and Buhasl, about 65 kilometers to the north.