Ukrainian children’s summer camp missing

The Russian-scale invasion began, Dima’s father said he would not see him again.

“Our street building aroused. My father said,” I will do whatever I can to live in normal life. ”

A few days, he joined the military father of Dima and went in search of the first line.

The fifteen-year-old Dima is sharing his father’s memories with 49 other Ukraine kids. Sitting around a camp, they make candles to celebrate missing lovers.

Soft slopes of the Ukrainian Carpato Mountains, bushes and bright green aunt, extend away.

It is a striking background for this heart scene. We are in the relative safety in the western Ukraine, Russian bombs rarely fall here.

A little girl talks when the whole scale invasion began.

“The first time we bombed, my hands were shaking and I was crying,” he explained. “I took a long time to deal with it.”

This fire activity is a kind of group therapy. It is a pioneering summer camp for a very special group of children in Ukraine, with parents who have disappeared during the war.

Some are missing from the front online soldiers, allegedly dead. Some are captive or trapped in occupied sites.

The Ukrainian government said more than 70,000 people are missing as missing.

Charities aimed at Gen.ukrainian camp, along Ukraine and several summer camps.

But it is the first to this category of children, and the BBC access was exclusive.

“Many of these children have many trauma because their parents are missing, but some of them are missing Uncle and grandmother,” explained Vanui Martirosyan, Psychologist Lead for charity psychologists.

“They live in a frozen state. They can’t plan something in the future, what they don’t bring about the future, and we can’t work with the real loss, because they don’t want to get stressed.”

Many children spend passing through the Russian social media channels, desperately looking for information about family members. Channels often experience violent content related to war.

“They feel the fear of crying, they think if they start crying. This type of trauma is the hardest to work.”

The next day of the Sampfire meeting, I talk to Dima, which means more about his father. The last time he heard from him was the day before he disappeared in November 2023.

“He found a video that everyone drank the tea in the woods and wrote a message:” I will call you everything well, “says Dima.

The next day, the mother of Dima got a phone call saying that his father was missing the action of his father.

“I started calling mobile. He didn’t answer. That was. I sat there and I started crying. I wouldn’t see my father for a while.”

In all interviews with the kids, along with Dima, there was a Gen.ukrainian psychologist.

“I hoped to finish my father a father somewhere in the prisoner of war, and now I hope,” says Dima.

Dima trauma increased only when his mother began to study the circumstances of the father’s disappearance.

Initially, the military was said to his husband in his position following the air atmosphere.

“Then someone else said someone else, and said that everyone was lying on his leg without legs. Then another soldier who was in his father said he had seen dead, his head.”

Dima says both and the influence of mother was deep.

“The mother shouted a lot about that. I made her side,” says Dima. “When he left his father, he said,” Dima, what happens what happens because you are a man, and you are his son. “

The group therapy is made daily in the camp, held in small rooms. We can observe the beginning of one of the sessions – the rest is confidential.

A psychologist shows Osena, children a color chart, which are used to describe emotions. Green is happy, blue is dull, yellow is anxiety or abuse, and red is anger.

Today, they will discuss sadness. Sorry, it’s not so sadder, says Oil, the more we love that we are saddening people. It shows that these people are important to us.

Children are encouraged to express feelings, including art. In a session of art therapy, many of the paintings show happy families, houses and pets.

A seven-year-old boy from Zaar, who says old, tells me his painting “Daddy comes home”. It shows the yellow stick in front of a blue sky – the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

Many children live in cities under the bombing of Russian drones and missiles in the nearby bombing. Like the birthplace of 16-year Nastia in Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, near the first line.

“If the bombing is near, I do shelter in the corridor. I worry and worry a lot,” Nastia said.

His father was also a soldier. It disappeared a year ago on the first line. He finally saw two weeks before.

I wonder if your father’s memories and eyes shine.

“It was very nice, he ruined me a lot. He had a sweet tooth like me, and he always knew what I treat me,” I only remember the good things about my father. The only sad thing I remember is that it’s gone.

“I love it very much and I know I also love me,” adding, adding, “I hope we can do new memories again.”

This camp also offers children to sleep, uninterrupted air attacks without interruption, and have fun and play. There are regular trips to the pool, hiking and volleyball games.

“It is important to heal the trauma for the movements of the bodies,” explained the psychologists.

In the closing ceremony, it is time to say goodbye to children and workers.

A boy, Ilya, is in the flood of tears – he doesn’t want to go home.

“We have a child like this in every camp”, it smiles Oksana Lebedieva, Gen.ukrainian creator.

He points to the throughs that play in the garden.

“Perhaps the first time in their lives, they found people who have passed through the same experience. And it’s very important. Group therapy is more important than anything: to see you are not alone.”

Oksana says that the scale of the task in charity is overwhelming.

“Millions of Ukrainians are traumatized with children. It is a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Additional news of John Murphy