Giant mural of a girl in the side of a building. Photo: International reporters/file photo.
By Faina Savenkova – May 29, 2024
I have been a child of war for three years now, I write and tell the world about how the children of Donbass live. Every time I write a message for the 1st of June, Children’s Day, I write an appeal that ends with the words that the war must end and we children of war can live a peaceful life. But these are just my wishes and hopes.
The war only intensifies. Ukraine and the West do not want peace. They just want a long war in my bleeding homeland. Every day children die in Donetsk, Lugansk, Belgorod. But the more children die, the bloodier the war, the more weapons are supplied by Western countries. For them, we are just an inaccuracy in statistical reports on civilian casualties, figures that can be ignored. I have appealed to the UN, UNICEF, Amnesty International, presidents, and opinion leaders in different countries, but unfortunately they are not interested in us children who suffer from war. The big media and political scientists are silent, they don’t hear us.
Is it hard to give up? I think not. I’m a child who lived ten years in the war, crippled mentally and sleeping for ten years with my eyes open. Waiting for so many years for a Ukrainian shell or a British missile to arrive, so I don’t think so. Waiting for so many years for a Ukrainian shell or a British missile to arrive, I don’t think so.
Today, on the eve of Children’s Day, I mourn for the dead children of Donbass, Belgorod, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, and appeal to the people of Western countries. Perhaps you do not know what your governments are doing. Perhaps you don’t care about us Children of War, but about the supply of weapons to Ukraine. The involvement of your military in the war in Ukraine will bring war to you. The streets of Paris and Rome will be deserted as they are now in Ukraine, because everyone will be sent to the front and your children will perish as they are now perishing in our country.
Remember this. Once, I was pushed to create by the sounds of falling Ukrainian bombs, it was very loud and very scary, believe me… There’s nothing more terrifying than a war that’s happening right outside your windows.
I will continue to write books, I will talk about kindness and peace in them. And someday I will definitely come to Kyiv, where I will tell my peers about what I have experienced and seen myself. I believe in that, if at least the next generation of my homeland can live in peace without the rumble of guns and deaths, and celebrate International Children’s Day, which is so much needed by the children of war.
Faina Savenkova defines herself as a writer and social activist who lives in the war, but otherwise, she is an ordinary teenager who loves to watch anime and TV series, and if there was no war and she had a choice, she wouldn’t be different from most of her peers.
