Charity headed by Tipperary woman offers hope to families in war-torn Ukraine

Under the dark shadow of the invasion of Ukraine, Irish charity Chernobyl Children International (CCI), which is headed by Clonmel woman Adi Roche, has sent a 12-person team of paediatric surgeons to war-torn Ukraine to carry out urgent lifesaving cardiac surgeries on babies and children for the second time this year.  

Despite widespread electricity outages and regular shellings, the team are running the gauntlet to ensure as many babies as possible have a chance of survival against their congenital heart defects. 

They travelled into Lviv on bus, having landed in Krakow, and are bringing with them lifesaving equipment including oxygenators that stop the flow of blood to the heart to repair congenital heart defects such as "Chernobyl Heart".  These machines are a vital lifeline for children as young as one-day-old in the battle against radiation-related congenital heart defects.

Speaking to CCI’s team in Lviv, one mother of a critically ill young baby said “We are in the middle of a war, feeling so alone.  The walls are shaking and the missile strikes come so often. I feared he would die, but now we have so much hope.  I can now dream of seeing my baby growing up. It’s a miracle”.

These children, and their devastated families, have been unable to flee their war-torn homeland because of the deteriorating nature of their cardiac illnesses.  Their loving and brave families have been forced to roll the dice with their own mortality in order to provide their children with the best chance of surviving what is now considered the double tragedy of Chernobyl and the ongoing invasion.  

CCI’s founder and Voluntary CEO, Adi Roche, said: “Sadly there are lives being lost because of the politics of war; not just with bombs and bullets, but also by ticking timebombs within these children’s chests. Children are suffering immensely from the trauma caused by the Russian invasion, the soaring levels of radioactivity in the Ukraine and the consequences of the Nova Khakovka dam disaster”. 

CCI continues to deliver vital humanitarian aid to families and communities in the Ivankiv region north of Kyiv, and within the Chernobyl zone.