The Ohmatdyt children’s hospital in central Kyiv has been a source of hope for hundreds of families during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – a place that can save the lives of the war’s youngest victims and, through expert treatment and prosthetics, help them to see and walk and hold things again.
The quiet order of Ohmatdyt was shattered on Monday, when a missile strike reduced part of the hospital to smoking ruins and left gravely ill children waiting for evacuation outside, and ambulances that always brought the sick and injured here instead sped away to other hospitals with wounded medics on-board.
At least two people were killed at Ohmatdyt, including a doctor, and seven children were among 16 people hurt. At least 22 people were killed and more than 70 injured in several missile strikes on Kyiv on Monday, when at least 13 people also died and about 50 were wounded in Russian rocket attacks on eastern Ukraine.
“When the big explosions began we decided to move all the children to the basement, but then there was another blast and things started falling on us,” said Mariya Soloshenko, a nurse at Ohmatdyt whose blue scrubs were smeared with blood.
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“We didn’t really know what was happening and it was horribly frightening. We got the children out and escaped through the windows – it was the only way,” added Soloshenko (21), who only started work at Ohmatdyt a month ago.
“Our ward sister was hit by something and suffered an open fracture of her leg. We carried her out in our arms and I didn’t even realise it was her until I cleaned her face. And I saw one of the doctors lying there, dead.”
Olena Rydan, an orderly, said repeated missile strikes on or near the hospital made evacuating the children terrifying and dangerous.
“We started taking the children to the shelters and then there were more explosions when I was down there. People began to panic, and we realised we had to get everyone in the shelters – children and adults,” she recalled.
“Then there was another explosion and a fire started near the entrance to the shelter. I heard at least four blasts for sure but couldn’t say exactly how many there were.”
Many medics, long used to treating children wounded by Russian attacks elsewhere in Ukraine, said they were too shocked or appalled to speak.
“The world should just know these words,” said doctor Mykyta Nechaev: “Russia is a terrorist state.”
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