Literally Losing Our Future – A Silent Tragedy

Hours ago, Ukraine's chief prosecutor's office reported that at least 79 children have been killed since the invasion began on Feb. 24 with the death toll rising as Putin targets defenseless civilian populations. Where are those to protect the helpless from this barbarism? Is anyone listening?

Last week Russian forces bombed a maternity and children’s hospital in the key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, where it is estimated that more than 400,000 people continue to be stranded after an evacuation attempt was thwarted. 

Of these thousands of Russian hostages whose humanitarian aid is blocked, Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated this past week that nearly 3,000 newborn babies were in desperate need of food and medicine. He further challenged the nations stating "I urge the world to act!" tweeting "Force Russia to stops its barbaric on civilians and babies!" 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also shared a video of what he described as the "direct strike of Russian troops" on the maternity hospital in Mariupol. His desperate plea to save these helpless victims of war has been made. Does the world care?

Zelenskyy demanded the skies be closed over Ukraine tweeting "People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity!" adding  "How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity." Again, who is listening?

Of the over 2.5 million people that have fled to Ukraine since this conflict began, according to the United Nations refugee agency and the United Nations children’s fund there is an estimated 500,000 refugees that are children. As the world watches, Ukraine’s civilian death toll rises daily with children’s deaths and injuries as a part of that human loss.

At this point the question begs - does anyone really care or are these lives just expected the cost of war? Who will give this lost future a voice? Yes, the world is a harsh and often unfair place, but the collective world needs to oppose any regime who uses the trauma of children and the weak as a means to make their point.

Does the world really care that a 10-year-old Ukrainian girl was shot by drunken Russian soldiers outside of Kyiv? Do children like Anastasia Stoluk, also called Nastya, who died on February 28 and was buried in her backyard, according to family members who were prevented from visiting the local cemetery - not matter?

Will someone not give these lost children a face or voice. As the world watches silently, a generation – our future is being pillaged.

Are the nations of the world not shocked and horrified by what is happening? Why the seeming calm with which we share the news of our next generation of citizens, our precious children, being lost and scarred for life by the war that is raging at present in the Ukraine?

This Russian attack on innocent life is a global tragedy and all our loss.

Edmund Burke said it this way – “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

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