War in Ukraine: 7-year-old Amelia sings again – After six days in shelter, she is safe in Poland

Her pure and childish voice shed light on the darkness of the Russian bombings and removed the deadly sounds for as long as the melody of her song lasted.

The image of little Amelia singing “Let it Go” from the movie Frozen in Ukrainian, hidden in a shelter in Kyivhad made the rounds of the world, shivering and moving everyone.

7-year-old Amelia finally managed, after 6 days of finding shelter in the sunless basement, to escape to Poland with her brother, following a decision by their parents. Safe, now, gave her first interview.

“It was afternoon, I was a little ashamed. Maybe I was a little tired but I sang, I tried hard, it was my dream. Only I was not on stage but in a basement. “But I imagined that I was on stage, that there were a lot of people, not a few people, but thousands,” said Amelia.

A few days later, 7-year-old Amelia tries again her voice, but also the… consciousness of the planet. This time she sings the national anthem of Ukraine, next to her excited grandmother.

“I know she loves to sing. “She likes to sing all day,” she told BBC Vira, her grandmother.

The little girl dreams and wishes peace in her homeland, Ukraine, where her parents are to offer help to the Ukrainian army.

Despair and fear for the children of the capital, after the bombing of a school in the suburbs

The lips of Anna Maria Romantsuk, a 14-year-old student, are still trembling, after the bombing of her school, “Gymnasium No. 34 »in Kyiv, early yesterday Friday morning.

“I was scared,” she says, in broken English, her face pale as her mother Oxana tries to comfort her. “I just hope everything goes well.”

A short distance from there, a corpse covered with a sheet, right next to the huge crater opened by the Russian rocket, which fell between the school, a kindergarten and various apartment buildings of the Soviet era.

The shockwave shattered all the windows of the school, one of the best in the Pontil, in this suburb of northwestern Kyiv that was once buzzing with life. The same fate befell the neighboring kindergarten adorned with a huge, painted squirrel: the windows broke and the roof sank.

Anna Maria and Oxana were at home when the blast occurred, as schools have closed since Russian invasion of February 24 and the lessons were done online. However, the residents of the district explained that civilians were resorting to the school to protect themselves from the bombs and they do not understand why it was targeted.

“The manager wrote to us and asked us to come and help, to clean the broken windows,” said Tetiana Teretchenko, 41, with a broom in hand. Her daughter, also 14 years old, is crying. “We were hoping to get back to school. We did a distance lesson, now we do not know what will happen “.

The mayor of Kiev Vitali Klitschko said one person was killed and 19 others were injured in the attack. Among the injured are four children.

For Unicef, the children of Ukraine face “an immediate and growing threat.” At least 109 have been killed since the start of the war, four of them in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian authorities. Six high schools and four primary schools have been damaged by the conflict and hundreds of thousands of children have fled the country. Millions more, however, remain in Ukraine.

The situation in Kyiv is not as critical as in other besieged cities, such as Kharkov and Mariupol. However, the capital has also been under repeated attacks by the Russian army in recent days.

“It is the absolute absurdity”, rebels Vladimir Klitschko, the mayor’s brother, who visited the site of the attack. “Is there a military base here?” wonders.

The explosion also destroyed the facade of an apartment building and its interior looks like a doll’s house from the outside. Outside, in a place where children usually played, pieces of cement and burned cars.

“A soldier should fight a soldier, not the civilians. “Worst of all, young children and women are being killed.”observes 53-year-old Roman Vasilenko, a resident who says that the door and a window of his house were broken by the explosion.

Vasilenko shows a certificate that he worked as a “liquidator” – he was one of the first people to go to Chernobyl after the 1986 nuclear accident. He also shows reporters photos of his daughter and grandchildren who left country and now live in Romania.

Through the holes that were left in the walls after the windows of Gymnasium No. were broken. 34, one can get an idea of ​​life before the war: a poster with the alphabet nailed to the wall, next to the blackboard. At the site, dozens of volunteers are clearing the rubble, hoping that one day the school will be operational again.

The repeated sound of rockets reminds us that the school is only a few kilometers from the front line, where Russian soldiers are trying to encircle Kyiv.

For Ukrainians, this war makes no sense.

“My grandfather is Russian, I am Ukrainian. I do not understand the purpose of all this. “Why kill so many people?” says 33-year-old Ina, another resident of the area. “A man was killed in the apartment building. The children are hiding at school. Why should they suffer? ” the woman continues.

Fear of a Russian attack on Kyiv has emptied the capital of 3.5 million people. Half of its population left. But for Tetiana Terechenko, it is impossible for her to leave. “Where to go; This is our city. We do not want to leave her. “