Debate of the day

Ukraine: children and war

Audio 29:30

Aleksander, 41, says goodbye to his daughter Anna, 5, who is fleeing the war.

She is on a train bound for Lviv.

© AP / Emilio Morenatti

By: Philippe Lecaplain

2 mins

Russian bombs, shells and missiles continue to fall on Ukraine.

On buildings, infrastructure, vehicles, but also and above all on men, women and children.

It is that in today's wars, it is always the civilians who pay the heaviest price.

It is very difficult to draw up a balance sheet, but several dozen young Ukrainians have been killed since the start of the offensive.

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In Mariupol, the bombardment, on Wednesday March 9, 2022, of a medical establishment housing both a pediatric hospital and a maternity hospital killed three people, including a little girl.

There are all those children who saw their father go to war and - perhaps - never come back.

There are those who live in fear, in restrictions, in cellars and shelters;

and then those who flee, sometimes without their parents.

There are two and a half million Ukrainians who have fled abroad and another two million displaced within their own country.

Even if their fate is more enviable, there are also all those children who, elsewhere in the world, hear about this war, see the images on television at soup time.

What to do for the little Ukrainians?

How do you talk about the war to all the other children?

With

- Ann Avril,

Executive Director of

- Violaine Gagnet

, program director of the

- Dominique Dimey,

singer, messenger of children's rights for

- Christian Lachal

, child psychiatrist in Clermont-Ferrand, former international consultant to

, he has been on many battlefields and now welcomes refugee children in his office;

author in particular of "Children and war" and "From free children's drawing to war drawing" in the magazine

.

A program presented by Philippe Lecaplain, prepared by Sigrid Azeroual, produced by Laurent Philippot, Emmanuel Sevin at Documentation. 

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• Ukraine

• Children's rights

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