No victim of war emerges without suffering some kind of loss: A displaced home. A loved one has disappeared. A life stolen.
However, no one has lost as much to war as children – ravaged by its devastation for a lifetime.
In Ukraine, time is running out to prevent another “lost generation” – a term often used not only for young lives lost, but also for children who sacrifice their education. , passion and friendship to redirect the front lines, or suffer psychological scars too deep. to be healed.
The online banner at the top of the Ukrainian government page, “Children of War” flashes with a grim and steadily increasing statistic: Dead: 361. Wounded: 702. Disappeared: 206. Found: 4.214. Deported: 6,159. Returned: 50.
Murat Sahin, representative of the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, in Ukraine, said: “One in 5.7 million Ukrainian children is traumatized. “I wouldn’t say 10 percent or 50 percent of it is OK – everyone is going through it and it takes years to heal.”
According to humanitarian agencies, more than a third of Ukrainian children – 2.2 million people – have been forced from their homes, many of them displaced two or three times because of lost territory. More than half of Ukraine’s children – 3.6 million children – may not have a school to go back to school next September.
However, even as war enters its sixth month, children’s advocates say there is still time to make meaningful changes to the way young people emerge from conflict.
In Lviv’s maternity wards, mothers pray that the war ends before their babies are old enough to remember it. In eastern Ukraine, activists search for missing children across the front lines. Across the country, aid workers and Ukrainian officials are trying to repair bombed schools and begin psychological support.
“We believe in the resilience of children,” said Ramon Shahzamani, president of War Child Holland, a group that focuses on psychological support and education for children in conflict areas.
“If you can reach children as early as possible and help them deal with what they have been through and what they have seen,” he says, “then they can deal with their emotions.”
That resilience is evident in the way children adjust to their daily lives – scribbling with crayons and drawing on the wall of a sunken basement where they are held captive, or inventing a game based on the regular checkpoints they have to go to. They imitate the grim reality they witness in war, but also find ways to escape it.
In Donbas, a 13-year-old girl named Dariia no longer flinches or flees when a shell is nearby, she is used to the terror that erupts every day.
However, it still has to pay the price with irreparable psychological damage. And the effects are not only mental, but also physical.
Sonia Khush, Director of Save the Children in Ukraine, said children suffering from war are at risk of “toxic stress”, a condition caused by times of extreme adversity. The effects are so strong that they can alter brain structure and organ systems, lasting throughout a child’s adult life.
Offering a hopeful path through war is not just for the children of Ukraine today, Mr. Shahzamani said. It is also for the sake of the country’s future.
The War Child team recently surveyed the children and grandchildren of people who lived through the Second World War, and found that families even two generations later were affected by wartime trauma.
“War is between generations,” he said. “That’s why it’s so important to look after the mental health and well-being of children.”
Ms. Khush said, education is very important for psychological support. Schools provide children with a social network among peers, guidance from teachers, and a routine that can provide a sense of normalcy amid widespread uncertainty.
More than 2,000 of Ukraine’s approximately 17,000 schools have been damaged by the war, while 221 schools have been destroyed, according to United Nations statistics. Another 3,500 have been used to shelter or assist the seven million Ukrainians who have fled to safer parts of the country. No one knows how many will open when the school year starts a month from now.
Social devastation is even harder to repair. Thousands of families were torn apart when brothers and fathers were enlisted or killed, and children were forced to flee, leaving grandparents and friends behind. Aid workers have noticed a growing problem of nightmares and aggressive behavior in young children.
Before the invasion, Ukraine had about 91,000 children in orphanages, more than half with disabilities, Sahin said. There are no published statistics showing how much that number has increased since the war began.
One of the great unknowns of the war is the number of orphans and separated parents. But in addition to the orphans, Moscow has also forcibly deported tens of thousands of Ukrainians to Russia, according to Ukrainian officials. Many are said to be children separated from their parents.
Now, Ukrainian activists are using secret networks inside Russian-administered territories to try to get information about those children – and if possible, get them back.
There is also hope for orphans. A new effort led by the Ukrainian government and UNICEF has encouraged some 21,000 families to apply for adoption. Already 1,000 of them have been trained and put children in school.
Maryna Lazebna, Ukraine’s minister of social policy, said: “It’s just the beginning. “Sometimes destruction encourages building something new rather than rebuilding the past.”
