- Saudi crown prince says no Israel ties without Palestinian state
- Canada to further cut international student, foreign worker permits
- YouTube launches new TV-focused tools for creators
- White Sox heading for worst season in MLB history
- China the top challenge in US history: senior diplomat
- Hong Kong democracy tycoon's son warns time running out
- New migraine drugs no better than cheap painkillers: big study
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs again denied bail in sex trafficking case
- Brewers clinch division title as MLB playoff race heats up
- Man City blunted by 'giant' Inter in Champions League stalemate
- US stocks dip despite larger Fed interest rate cut
- Man City held by Inter as PSG pinch win in Champions League
- All Blacks recall Beauden Barrett for Australia Test
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 20, wound 450
- Spurs late show saves Postecoglou blushes at Coventry
- PSG snatch late goal to beat Champions League debutants Girona
- Gittens' late double gives Dortmund Champions League win at Brugge
- Man City blunted by Inter in Champions League stalemate
- Hidden talent: French Olympic star Marchand opts for disguise
- MrBeast named in California lawsuit over 'Beast Games' show
- Gauff splits with Gilbert as coach after 14-month run
- Hundreds of thousands at risk in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN
- Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge
- Venezuelan opposition candidate says letter conceding election was coerced
- Ukraine official claims Russian advance in Kursk has been 'stopped'
- X update allows app to bypass Brazil ban: internet providers
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 14, wound 450
- US Fed makes aggressive rate cut, weeks before election
- Arsenal's Odegaard faces lengthy injury absence
- India coal expansion risks massive methane growth: report
- China the top challenge in US history, top diplomat says
- US Fed makes larger half-point cut in first reduction since 2020
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr appoint former AC Milan boss Pioli
- Ainslie 'relieved' as British book place in Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Struggling Roma replace sacked icon De Rossi with Ivan Juric
- Women's NBA will add 15th team in Portland in 2026
- Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss
- Boeing to start large temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill nine, wound 300
- 'Emergency' declared over falling UK butterfly numbers
- McIlroy outlines threats to golf peace deal
- Stock markets, dollar slip before US rate decision
- Russian advance in Kursk 'stopped': Ukraine official to AFP
- UN members demand end to 'unlawful' Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories
- Snapchat pushes 'safer' platform image, but not everyone agrees
- Three dead, 100 wounded in new wave of Lebanon device explosions
- So where does the oceans' plastic waste come from?
- Allied war heroes buried in Netherlands... 80 years on
- Marsh coy over Australia's choice to open alongside Head
- New London sculpture pays tribute to trans community
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.02% | 25.055 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.37% | 6.55 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.12% | 24.98 | $ | |
GSK | -0.31% | 42.43 | $ | |
SCS | 0.71% | 14.11 | $ | |
RIO | -0.02% | 62.91 | $ | |
BTI | -0.34% | 37.88 | $ | |
NGG | -0.46% | 70.05 | $ | |
RELX | -0.82% | 47.37 | $ | |
VOD | 0.49% | 10.23 | $ | |
BCC | 1.33% | 137.06 | $ | |
JRI | 0.45% | 13.44 | $ | |
BCE | 3.09% | 35.61 | $ | |
BP | -0.37% | 32.43 | $ | |
AZN | 0.06% | 78.58 | $ |
Kharkiv children fleeing bombs find refuge in Italy
An Italian aid programme had for years provided Viktoria Shakshyna with a respite from the children's home where she lived in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine. When the bombs began falling, it became her lifeline.
"You could hear the shots and the sounds of missiles... many buildings in the city centre were destroyed, like our cinema," the 16-year-old told AFP, recalling the torment in her city after Russia's invasion.
But unlike so many others still trapped in Kharkiv, her nightmare ended on March 7 when, after a long journey by train and bus, she arrived in Cusago, near Milan, into the care of the family she has stayed with twice a year since she was nine.
Here, her room is filled with cuddly toys and happy memories of Italy that helped sustain her during the worst days.
"If I have to die, I die. But I will have had a happy life, I was lucky, I managed to visit Disneyland in Paris, Berlin and Sicily," she had told her foster parents while in Kharkiv.
- Chernobyl disaster -
Viktoria came to Italy with the help of "The Children of the East", an Italian association which grew out of Europe-wide efforts to give children from Ukraine fresh air and new possibilities after the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.
She regularly spent three months in the summer and one month in the winter in the quiet, green surroundings of Cusago.
It was a welcome break from Kharkiv, where she lived in one of Ukraine's notorious children's homes, which host orphans but also those separated from parents deemed unfit for various reasons, from criminality to alcoholism.
Since Russia invaded its neighbour on February 24, Ukraine's second-largest city has faced a daily barrage of Russian rocket attacks, day and night.
When the air raid sirens went off, Viktoria -- known as Vika -- took refuge in a school basement. Wrapped in a sleeping bag, she passed the time by playing Burraco, an Italian card game.
With her host mother, 47-year-old graphic designer Michela Slomp, nearby she says her future is Italy.
"My house is here, I want to finish school and go to university," she said in almost perfect Italian, her face lit up with a large smile.
Vika was not even born when Chernobyl's number four reactor exploded on April 26, 1986, causing the world's worst nuclear accident, killing hundreds and spreading radioactive contamination west across Europe.
But the desire to help the children of Ukraine lives on through the "Children of the East" association, run by Federica Bezziccheri.
Since the war began, her telephone has rung day and night with Italian families searching desperately for their foster children -- and young Ukrainians trying to get out.
"We are experiencing the war live. When we call the children via videolink, we can hear the bombing," Bezziccheri said.
- 'Die like rats' -
"The girls tell us how they only had to walk a hundred metres to see the dead. The boys signed up as volunteers, filling sandbags or digging trenches," she told AFP at her apartment in Milan.
"Some young people say it is better to risk being injured or killed helping their country, than to die like rats in a cage under a building."
So far, the association has brought 280 refugees to Italy, out of more than 100,000 Ukrainians who have sought refuge in the Mediterranean country.
The Italian foster family of Yana Alieva, 20, got her out of Kharkiv in January, anticipating Russia's invasion.
She too was brought up in a children's home but is now safe in a Milan apartment, a blue and yellow Ukrainian flag draped from the balcony.
"I am heartbroken. In a few days my world has disappeared. My boyfriend and my friends survived the bombs in the cellars before moving to safer areas, I fear for those who stayed," she said.
She is also angry. Before the war, "we were all united, Russians and Ukrainians, as one people", but now "we see who they really are".
She has enrolled in the Catholic university in Milan, but hopes to return to Ukraine after the war.
"My home is there," she said, adding she hoped "to participate in the reconstruction of my city and make it even more beautiful".
M.Ouellet--BTB