Medical Partnership Between Two Children's Hospitals in Ukraine and Sweden

Abstract

The Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the following blunt disregard for human rights have triggered massive support for Ukraine all over the free world. Like children in other conflicts, the children of Ukraine suffer in multiple ways with more than 660 dead and 1,700 injured. Today, one million children lack access to in-person schooling. Classrooms and playgrounds have been replaced by makeshift schools underground. Nine out of ten of the 6.3 million refugees outside Ukraine and the 3.6 million displaced refugees within Ukraine are women and children. Approximately 1.7 million children do not have access to safe drinking water and 3.4 million to centralised sanitation. At least 20,000 children have been kidnapped (displaced by force) to Russia or Russian-occupied territories for which international arrest warrants have been issued for Russian President Putin and the Children's Rights Commissioner LvovaBleova. The Russian targeting of civilian infrastructure and the upcoming winter cold will obviously be especially hard on the children.