Friday, March 10, 2000
Forgotten Ukrainians - Digital Journalist photo essay
Less than a year after this photograph of Martushka was taken, The Children of Chornobyl Relief, who sponsored the documentary, went to the hospital searching for her. They had used this photograph to raise awareness of the plight of children in Ukraine suffering from cancer and planned to give her some sort of a scholarship. When they showed the doctors who had worked with Martushka the photo, they said they were too late, she had already passed away.
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[Background] On April 26, 1986, reactor #4 at the Chornobyl* Atomic Energy Station in northern Ukraine exploded. As a result, an estimated 260 million curies of radiation were released. This is approximately 200 times more radiation than was released by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Radiation from Chornobyl rained down on unsuspecting victims and their unborn children in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia contaminating some of the world's richest soil and condemning millions of people to future illnesses and death.
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I traveled for four weeks and photographed children with cancer and severe birth defects. I was touched by the courage of children who were undergoing cancer treatment. Many were only six or seven years old, yet they seemed to carry the weight of adulthood on their faces. In several orphanages I witnessed and photographed an absolute nightmare. Half-naked children in tattered clothing lay on urine soaked wooden floors. Legs and bodies were contorted in every angle but straight. If all children are angels, these children had their wings clipped and were thrown into a living hell. ...
Less than a year after this photograph of Martushka was taken, The Children of Chornobyl Relief, who sponsored the documentary, went to the hospital searching for her. They had used this photograph to raise awareness of the plight of children in Ukraine suffering from cancer and planned to give her some sort of a scholarship. When they showed the doctors who had worked with Martushka the photo, they said they were too late, she had already passed away.
...
[Background] On April 26, 1986, reactor #4 at the Chornobyl* Atomic Energy Station in northern Ukraine exploded. As a result, an estimated 260 million curies of radiation were released. This is approximately 200 times more radiation than was released by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Radiation from Chornobyl rained down on unsuspecting victims and their unborn children in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia contaminating some of the world's richest soil and condemning millions of people to future illnesses and death.
...
I traveled for four weeks and photographed children with cancer and severe birth defects. I was touched by the courage of children who were undergoing cancer treatment. Many were only six or seven years old, yet they seemed to carry the weight of adulthood on their faces. In several orphanages I witnessed and photographed an absolute nightmare. Half-naked children in tattered clothing lay on urine soaked wooden floors. Legs and bodies were contorted in every angle but straight. If all children are angels, these children had their wings clipped and were thrown into a living hell. ...
Labels: suffering
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