Children bear invisible wounds of conflict in Ukraine

Fifteen-year-old Illia has no visible scars on his body from the shells and shrapnel that have fallen on his hometown in eastern Ukraine. They have left scars of a different kind.

“I was standing in the kitchen when the shell hit us,” recalls the teenager. “In a split second there was an explosion. All I remember is that my ears were buzzing and I saw a yellow line of fire, then red, orange and fragments.”

Over the years, his vision has deteriorated. Nights spent sheltering in a dark basement have only made it worse. And he is not alone – according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the devastating conflict in eastern Ukraine is increasingly affecting children’s mental health, causing nightmares, social isolation and panic attacks.

Nearly every child here is now thought to be in need of psychosocial support. UNICEF works to ensure the access to psychosocial support through community-based and school-based activities.

Seven years of conflict-related stress has caused Afina, a nine-year-old from eastern Ukraine, to develop diabetes. Her blood sugar level must be measured up to seven times a day and, due to financial insecurity, her family often struggle to afford insulin.

Afina and Illia are different ages, from different cities, with different hobbies and dreams. But both bear the invisible wounds of conflict.

Illia: “The main thing during the war is to make it to safety in time”

Illia dreams of moving to a big city, but he knows only too well how fragile dreams can be. As a child, he always had big plans for the future. Then the conflict broke out.

“The most important thing during a war is to make it to safety in time,” he says. “When you hear a shot, you run to the basement, hide and wait for the explosion. You need to survive while you run to the basement. And then you need to survive in the basement.”

“My life has changed a lot. If it hadn’t been for the war, I wouldn’t have had vision problems, and I would have continued to play hockey and enter university in Donetsk.”

Seven years have changed his life – and his dreams – dramatically.

Today, the hockey team has been disbanded due to hostilities. The university that he planned to go to is now located on the other side of the checkpoints that form the ‘contact line’, in territory beyond government control. And the stress has taken its toll on his vision.

However, thanks to hospital treatment, Illia has been able to stop his vision from deteriorating further. He now wears glasses to correct his myopia. And while he hopes to play sport again one day, he likes to help around the house and prepare delicious desserts.

“The hardest thing during a war is the thought that the shelling could hit your family. Therefore, we all support each other and try to make each other happy. For example, today I bake cupcakes for my parents. They love them.”

Afina: “I remember running away from a tank and losing my slippers”

Afina was just two years old when the shells first began to fall in eastern Ukraine.

Her mother, Daria, remembers her daughter playing near their house when a tank drove along their street. “She ran as fast as she could, so that she even lost her shoes,” says Daria, sadly. “She got scared and started hiding behind me, crying a lot.”

Despite being young, Afina remembers it well.

“Yes, I remember,” she says, softly. “How I ran away from the tank and lost my slippers. And I went running barefoot.”

After years of stress caused by shelling, Afina was eventually diagnosed with diabetes.

“I started drinking a lot of water," she says. “As if everything was dry inside me.”

The conflict has also impacted her family’s financial situation.

“We were left without a livelihood,” says Daria. “They stopped paying the wages to my husband, payments to my parents were also delayed, even our cow stopped milking at that time. Our life has turned upside down.”

As a result, the family struggle to buy new test strips and needles for Afina, as well as insulin for daily injections.

“As long as I know Afina, she has always had a dream – to fly on vacation by plane,” says Daria. “Perhaps someday we will be able to do it. But until the war is over, we live a day-to-day existence.”

Despite recent developments intending to protect the rights of children affected by eastern Ukraine’s more than seven-year long conflict, nearly half a million girls and boys continue to face grave risks to their physical health and psychological well-being.

UNICEF, along with partners, provides mental health and psychosocial support services for children living along the more than 420 kilometer-long contact line that divides government and non-government controlled areas.  In 2021, UNICEF support reached over 70,000 children, youth and caregivers. We trained teachers to offer psychosocial support, meaning they can now provide better care for children in school, as well as better cope themselves with the fear and stress of the conflict. 

In 2022, UNICEF needs US$2.2 million for its child protection work to provide more than 85,000 children with critical psychosocial support.