Quote Originally Posted by Gofer Blue View Post
With this huge 40 mile convoy of tanks, artillery and armoured trucks approaching Kiev from the north I fear that this is it. Already civilian targets are being destroyed in the second city Kharkiv, so it's becoming no holds barred now. I think Putin has two options depending on his degree of impatience to take over Ukraine - if in a hurry, use every weapon he has to pulverise Kiev so that the president Zelensky has no option but to surrender to prevent a massacre, or alternatively if he is not in a rush, lay siege to the city and starve the population into submission. There are no words to describe Putin other than evil personified.
It is really worrying.

Just come out of a meeting with my colleagues... some of whom are working in Ukraine working to reform their care systems. Many of the unseen victims in this situation are the 100,000 children confined in 600 orphanages. They are the unseen victims of this conflict.

While we work with many governments to prevent children being placed in orphanages and get children out of orphanages, a situation like the one in Ukraine shows how very vulnerable children in orphanages are.

We have reports of carers and workers at orphanages not turning up for work and fleeing (understandably prioritising their own families), leaving children in orphanages alone with on one to care for them. We have even seen Russia target orphanages and today we have requested that they are temporarily recognised as humanitarian institutions so they are protected under the Geneva convention.

We are:

-calling on all actors in this conflict to keep orphanages out of the firing line. They must remain fully staffed and supplied with adequate food, water, medicines, hygiene products, communication devices and emergency provisions.

- providing children and families in the conflict-zone with emergency aid, so they can bunker down with enough food, clothes, medicine and tape to prevent explosions and broken glass injuring people.

- preparing for the safe evacuation of children and families from the warzone, if required. We’re ready with transportation and provisions such as food, torches and sleeping bags – accounting for, and tracking, every child.

- calling on governments in neighbouring countries to support refugees fleeing over the border. Families must be kept together at all costs. And we must keep displaced children traveling alone out of orphanages - instead prioritising emergency foster care and family reunification.


for more information visit our website:

https://www.hopeandhomes.org/

PS.. sorry for the promotion but it is an often forgotten issue. we worked in conflict zones before... South Sudan, Bosnia and Rwanda, so have see first hand the issue facing children