While I was in Lviv a few days ago, I was shown a “special stone” found by a little girl. The little girl who found it didn't realize the stone she was playing with was in fact a piece of shrapnel from a bomb. Sitting in the palm of your hand, it’s jagged and heavier than you would expect. Its shine and unusual nature must have caught the child’s eye.
When a bomb or shell explodes, sharp fragments of heavy metal tear into the bodies of those near the point of impact. Many of the children I met from the Kramatorsk train station bombing had pieces of shrapnel recently removed - a difficult and painful process. Fragments close to vital organs were too dangerous to remove, and remained inside some of the children’s bodies.
There is no sense to be made from such harm to children, that goes beyond physical injury to the emotional and mental manifestations of trauma.
The fight to end a war, like the one being suffered in Ukraine, is a race to limit the number of casualties killed, injured, displaced and traumatized every day.
#ukraine #childreninconflict
