About 2,000 children have been missing since the start of the war in Ukraine. One of them is Sasha Zdanovych (4). He and his grandmother fled last month, but the boat they were in capsized. The grandmother was found dead, there is no trace of the toddler to date. His mother is desperately looking for him. 4-year-old Sasha is the first child to appear on a European missing children list. Our country is also drawing attention to the disappearance.
Sasha Zdanovych (4) is one of approximately 2,000 children who have gone missing since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The figure comes from the local NGO Magnolia, a center for missing children with which the Belgian Child Focus foundation works closely together. “Most of the missing children are still in Ukraine,” Stephan Smets of Child Focus tells the radio news of Qmusic. “Either they are dead, or they are being taken care of by another family, or they are on the run.”
Some of them crossed the border into another country, mostly to neighboring Poland. In an effort to find those missing minors, all missing children centers in Europe recently launched a central website established that will bundle all search messages. The first child to be featured on the website is 4-year-old Sasha Zdanovych.
The boy has been missing since early March. His mother is desperately looking for him. “We believe in a miracle and are waiting for any useful information,” Anna Yakhno wrote on Facebook.
Her only child was staying with his grandmother in the Vyshgorod region, north of Kiev, when the Russians invaded Ukraine on February 24. Several attempts to flee overland failed due to shelling or roadblocks. Anna and her husband were also unable to reach their child and his grandmother Zoya (60) due to the threat of the Russians.
The grandmother and her grandson eventually fled by boat. The last three days before their departure they had no electricity in the village. There was no food on the shelves in the only two stores. In early March, Zoya and Sasha, along with six others, entered the Kiev reservoir, but the boat containing the refugees capsized. The bodies of the grandmother and another woman were found a day later. The boy has not been seen since.
Sasha was the only one wearing a life jacket, giving his mother hope that her son could make it to land safely. Not far from where the boat capsized are the Ukrainian towns of Tolokun and Sukholochye, but residents there have been cut off from electricity and communications for weeks. “Maybe my boy got to a nearby village, but it’s impossible to check,” says Anna.
The 4-year-old Sasha may have reached another country by now. “I barely sleep and I’m completely exhausted, but I hold on because there is still hope,” the Ukrainian mother testified. “Our boy may be among the refugees. He can be in any country. I want to be awake when the right call comes.” Anna recently distributed a number of photos of her son via Facebook to draw attention to his disappearance.
A search message for the toddler has also been distributed with us. According to Stephan Smets of Child Focus, it is quite possible that the child survived the boat accident and came ashore. “The boy was wearing a life jacket, so we assume that he survived,” Smets told HLN Live. It is suspected that Sasha fled abroad with others. “Maybe towards Poland, but there are no indications for that.”
There is also nothing to indicate that Sasha is in our country, Smets continues, yet Child Focus has also distributed a search message for the boy in our country. That is part of the coordinated approach at European level to find missing minors, it sounds. “Sasha is the first child to be identified in this way,” explains Smets. “And there will probably be many more to come. It is important that we all look for him together.”
Information about Sasha can be passed on to the local police or to Child Focus via the toll-free number 116 000.
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