Saving Ukraine's children
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 16 April 2022
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The United Nations’ children agency, Unicef, has said that almost two thirds of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children have been displaced during the six weeks since Russia’s invasion.
One of Russia’s key targets has been the southern port city of Mariupol. Thousands of civilians are dead, many more have been left trapped and face an horrendous struggle for survival. Pastor Gennady Mokhnenko is a chaplain from Mariupol. He describes what he has seen and heard in the city, and his efforts to help children to escape. He is joined in conversation by Vasylyna Dubaylo, director of the charity Partnership for Every Child. She’s currently in Poland and has been helping foster children find Ukrainian families.
The war has now separated millions of people in Ukraine from loved ones/ Host Ben James introduces us to Olha and Andrii, a young married couple. Olha took an opportunity to leave with her younger siblings, but is now more than five thousand miles away in Canada. Andrii remains in Ukraine, wondering if he will be called upon to fight for his country. Neither of them know when or if they will see each other again, and they discuss how the war has changed their lives.
Guidance: Contains graphic content.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Ben James and this is BBC OS Conversations, |
| 0:04.3 | Saving Ukraine's Children. |
| 0:09.0 | One of our guests talks of a war without rules and discusses the difficulties of helping children |
| 0:14.3 | left alone and parentless. And we also connect with a young married couple now separated by |
| 0:19.9 | thousands of kilometres because men of working age must stay behind and be prepared to fight. |
| 0:25.6 | Wives and kids left their dads and husbands and this separation it was so new for me and so |
| 0:35.1 | unbearable. Yeah, it makes me cry sometime. |
| 0:41.2 | The United Nations Children's Agency, UNICEF, has said that almost two thirds of Ukraine's 7.5 |
| 0:47.9 | million children have been displaced during the six weeks since Russia's invasion. |
| 0:52.9 | One of Russia's key targets has been the southern port city of Maripol. Thousands of civilians have |
| 0:59.9 | been killed, many more are faced with a horrendous struggle for survival. We're going to hear from |
| 1:05.3 | there in our next conversation. Pastor Gennady Makhnenka is a chaplain from Maripol. He |
| 1:12.5 | heads the Children's Rehabilitation Centre, Republic of Pilgrim and he's been helping children |
| 1:17.9 | to escape. His is the first voice you'll hear. Joining Pastor Gennady is Vasylina Dubela, |
| 1:24.8 | director of the charity Partnership for Every Child. She's been helping foster children find |
| 1:30.5 | Ukrainian families and is currently in Poland. They spoke to my colleague, Krupa Puddy, |
| 1:36.0 | and I should warn you that some of their accounts are upsetting. |
| 1:39.8 | In first day when Russian rockets start killed people inside my city, we had decision |
| 1:46.7 | very quickly. It was crazy to test for us because my convoy with children with many cars, |
| 1:57.8 | when many buses, moved from east to west, but Russian tanks moved across my way from south |
| 2:07.7 | to the north. It was like competition with Russian tanks. I'm so happy because we won and my |
| 2:16.0 | orphanage, my adopted families, we equate all of them, the biggest part of them, we equate |
... |
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