The Coltons Point Times: The Melchizedek Chronicles - Nuclear Dangers - The Children of Chernobyl

As you learned in my last article on Chernobyl, the extent of damage was not as severe as first speculated. Since there was never a meltdown of a nuclear reactor before, no one really knew what to expect. The most difficult aspect to project was the long term radiation impact on children who were exposed to the radiation cloud when it happened, or born after the accident to parents who were exposed to the radiation.

Since we are only 33 years into the history of the accident and the radiation half life may last 500 to 1,000 years, we have much to learn. As you will discover in this story, in spite of the evacuation of many hundreds of thousands of people, men, women and children, many were contaminated with high levels of radiation.

Well science can claim the damage was much less severe than expected, but the children are not merely statistics, collateral damage in a severe accident, or a footnote in the history books, but a living testament to the follies of mankind.

What happened to them is criminal.

I personally met groups of children from Chernobyl just ten years after the accident on two visits to Scotland. They still lived in the contaminated zone because they were contaminated in the accident along with their families and I can tell you, they did not complain but their lives and childhood had been stolen from them by something they did not understand, radiation poisoning.

There was and still is an incredible international effort to bring these victims out of the hot zone at least once a year and make them guests of ost families in different counties. Scotland was one of the first countries to participate. May the work of these humanitarians assure these helpless victims are never forgotten.

I am proud of my Scottish ancestors for working to improve the quality of life for these kids. Even more so because Scotland was blanketed by the Chernobyl radiation cloud and many of the sheep were poisoned by the radiation and had to be humanely destroyed.

My plea to you is to not get so caught up in your own lives that you ignore the suffering of others, especially the innocent children of the world.

Kid born after accident

Chernobyl's legacy: Kids with bodies ravaged by disaster

THERE ARE 2,397,863 PEOPLE REGISTERED WITH UKRAINE’S HEALTH MINISTRY TO RECEIVE ONGOING CHERNOBYL-RELATED HEALTH TREATMENT. OF THESE, 453,391 ARE CHILDREN.

im Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY

Published 9:23 a.m. ET April 17, 2016 | Updated 12:25 p.m. ET April 18, 2016

There are 2,397,863 people registered with Ukraine’s health ministry to receive ongoing Chernobyl-related health care. Of these, 453,391 are children — none born at the time of the accident. Their parents were children in 1986. These children have a range of illnesses: respiratory, digestive, musculoskeletal, eye diseases, blood diseases, cancer, congenital malformations, genetic abnormalities, trauma.

The children of Chernobyl have had children of their own who experience the effects of radiation exposure. It has not deterred Daryna Bizilya who hopes to be a singer.Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY

KIEV, Ukraine — Daryna Bizilya, 10, wants to be a singer. During a visit with her and about a dozen other children at Ukraine’s largest medical clinic for people living with the consequences of Chernobyl, that's what she did: She sang.

Bizilya walked directly into the middle of the room, signaled to her friend in the corner holding a cellphone to crank up its digital beatbox, and just went for it. She sang with feeling, dramatic facial expressions and large, sweeping arm gestures that occasionally ended with a clenched fist.

Daryna Bizilya, 10, sings at the institute in Ukraine.
(Photo: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY)

This clinic had an elaborate name, even by former Communist-bloc standards — the Institute of Specialized Radiation Protection of the Ukraine Population. It was full of sick children whose entire lives had only known illness.

The halls were long and dark and seemed, however improbably, to be lit chiefly by fading avocado-colored paint. The children’s bedrooms were neat but gloomy. Textbook orphanage-interior. Not every room was heated, and it was cold outside.

The Institute of Specialized Radiation Protection of the Ukraine Population, in Kiev. Photo: March 3, 2016. (Photo: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY)

The children were eating a late breakfast when USA TODAY arrived. They all immediately stood up and said loudly, "Dobryy den!" (Good day!)

That’s when Bizilya presented herself.

The number she performed was by Ukrainian artist Ani Lorak, a hero of Bizilya's. On her website, Lorak describes herself as the "singer who became the idol of Ukrainians."

Bizilya, whose favorite subjects are math and English, said she admired Lorak mostly because she “sings from her heart, and she feels her songs with her heart.”

Bizilya has a heart condition brought on by eating contaminated food, her doctors said. Too much physical exercise makes her condition worse.

"They told us at school that some children were left without a home, and that they were very ill," she said when asked to explain what she knew about Chernobyl. "I would like to help those children who are without parents. There are children in our village like this," she added.

Daryna does not think of herself as especially ill.

Neither does Yaroslav Artemchuk, 14, a mild-mannered boy who said initially that he was not here because of radiation but because he fell and got a concussion.

Artemchuk also has ambitions to be a singer.

"Probably a pop singer, like Michael Jackson," he said.

The Institute of Specialized Radiation Protection of the Ukraine Population.
(Photo: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY)

He had some other things to say: Favorite food (meatballs), soccer team (Dynamo Kiev) and player (Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo).

"The doctor says I have very bad blood circulation," he suddenly volunteered. "My parents say that Chernobyl was a big disaster and many people perished because of it."

A girl named Alina Aponchuk, also 14, was too nervous to speak and fiddled with the sleeves of her dress. There was something on her mind. After a few minutes, she said she was going home the next day.

A road inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone stretches to the horizon.(Photo: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY)

Aponchuk’s doctor said she had two left kidneys, both twice the normal size. She had chronic gastroduodenitis, which produces sharp stomach pains, lethargy and headaches. She also had "vegetative dysfunction," a nervous system syndrome that causes anxiety, depression and other emotional stresses.

Vadim Bozhenko, the doctor who runs the clinic, said children stay at the institute from a few days to several weeks and all come from areas located on radioactive land.

"The (children) eat and drink contaminated milk products because cattle that live there eat that grass," he said, adding that the clinic was underfunded by at least 30%.

Looking around the grounds that evoked a disheveled college campus, it was hard to believe the shortfall was that modest.

“Tell them we need beds and blankets,” Bozhenko said. "Tell them the Institute of Specialized Radiation Protection of the Ukraine Population needs this and a lot more."