in the Carpathians, Ukrainian children “no longer think about war” during a summer camp

The mountains stretch as far as the eye can see, like huge protective arms. In the Carpathians, in western Ukraine, in the shade of the fir trees, the children decompress. Summer camp organizations welcome them for 15 days or more. For the colony Le temps indigo, in the small village of Slavske, the watchword is simple: “Children have the right to their childhood, even in times of war“.

The young boarders are haunted by the war, the bombings, the sirens, the days spent in the basements. They come from Kharkiv, Zaporijia or kyiv. Mike is 11 years old and has “forgot the war” the time of this colo. “I like it here, there is beautiful nature, fresh airhe says. In this colony, I no longer think about war. And for me, it’s better that way. I don’t want to remember her anymore.“Beside him, Tonia, she “rest here from [ses] problems, war…and…school“, slips the nine-year-old girl. In her head, the sounds of the sirens of her neighborhood in kyiv still resonate.

“In kyiv I am like a bird locked in a cage, and here the cage is open”

Tonia, a child from kyiv

franceinfo

Ksenia Youschenko is leading these summer camps this year, not quite like the others. Initially, he was not supposed to have a camp this summer, “but the parents asked us”, she explains. “They were afraid, here there are a lot of children from kyiv, who spent a lot of time in the basements“. All have in common to have lived “very sad stories”, underlines the director. “A boy saidshe continues, that his grandmother hid him with his sister in a bale of straw because the Russian soldiers arrived. Another child has lost his father.“

Dania, 14, is the young boy hidden in the straw. He lived “under occupation for a month”, he said. “The Russian tanks have arrived, finally machines. I would like to forget it because I was a little scared“. In Slavske, children play, hike, dance. When the storm rages. It is necessary to watch closely over those who have lived through the bombardments. Some parents are so reassured to know that their children are far from danger, that they have asked the animators to keep them on all summer.