Protecting kids in Ukraine: Three tales of courage and care
It was shrapnel that made orphans of Andriy and Olha.
The Russian shell landed outside their home as a battle between Ukrainian and Russian forces pummeled their village of Torske in eastern Ukraine. The brother and sister were inside their two-story house; their father, a single dad, was outside in the garden.
“They saw the moment their father was killed,” says combat medic Nika Cherniavska, who helped rescue them. She had bonded with the children over several previous visits to their house, attempting to persuade them to leave. “They saw everything.”
Just hours after the attack, in the nearby town of Lyman, the siblings sit in traumatized silence in a minivan, awaiting evacuation to a hospital. Olha stares into space. Andriy is lost for words until he remembers something crucial: his prized collection of military
