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The United Nations’ children agency, UNICEF, has said that almost two-thirds of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children have been displaced during the six weeks since Russia’s invasion.

One of Russia’s key targets has been the southern port city of Mariupol. Thousands of civilians are dead, many more have been left trapped and face an horrendous struggle for survival. Pastor Gennady Mokhnenko is a chaplain from Mariupol. He describes what he has seen and heard in the city and his efforts to help children to escape. He is joined in conversation by director of the charity, Partnership for Every Child, Vasylyna Dubaylo. She’s currently in Poland and has been helping foster children find Ukrainian families.

The war has now separated millions of people in Ukraine from loved ones and host Ben James introduces us to Olha and Andrii, a young married couple. Olha took an opportunity to leave with her younger siblings but is now more than five thousand miles away in Canada. Andrii remains in Ukraine wondering if he will be called upon to fight for his country. Neither of them know when or if they will see each other again and they discuss how the war has changed their lives.

Guidance: Contains graphic content.

(Photo: A group of children evacuated from an orphanage in Zaporizhzhia wait to board a bus for their transfer to Poland after fleeing the ongoing Russian invasion at the main train station in Lviv, Ukraine, March 5, 2022. Credit: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)