'I came home and found my two little girls covered in blood': Children caught in the crossfire as violence surges in Ukraine during lockdown

'After more than six years of deadly conflict children and families in eastern Ukraine urgently need peace', UN official says

A serviceman of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) sits on Grad multiple rocket launcher systems during military exercises at a target range outside the town of Horlivka (REUTERS)

Children are being caught in the crossfire of the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine - prompting calls from the UN children’s agency for combatants to call a ceasefire in an end to the six years of conflict that have ravaged the region.

The eastern European nation, like many across the continent and the world, has imposed lockdown measures on its citizens including school closures and the curtailing of public transport.

Now officials have warned children are being forced to remain in a warzone by the measures as conflict continues between Russian backed separatists and Kievan forces.

Six children were injured at home after their villages came under shelling during the first week of May alone, while one incident left three young girls, two of them sisters aged 7 and 10 years old, severely injured.

“I came home and found my two little girls and their friend in the bathroom covered in blood,” Oleksanderi, their father, told humanitarian workers. “They were so scared, they just went inside the bathroom, waiting there until they were discovered.”

According to UN figures, there have been 10 conflict-related child casualties since the beginning of this year - with six incidents occurring during the first week of May amid the height of the nation’s outbreak. The figure is double that of the same period the year prior.

Meanwhile there have been nine recorded attacks on schools since the beginning of 2020, with five occurring in April alone including one incident in which a seventeen-year-old girl was injured by shrapnel while in her schoolyard.

And with the school year being completed remotely, concern has been raised that many on the contact line between the two warring factions will be left without electricity and sufficient internet connection to wrap up their education for the term.

“It is unconscionable that children and families in eastern Ukraine are not only having to cope with the strict lockdown measures all families are struggling with across Europe, but also the constant threat that their homes could come under attack,” UNICEF’s Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia Afshan Khan said.

“After more than six years of deadly conflict children and families in eastern Ukraine urgently need peace. We urge all parties to commit to a ceasefire.”

In March the UN’s chief Antonio Guterres urged the world to lay down weapons for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic to allow for a unified response to the threat.

However despite initial glimmers of hope - including reductions in violence in Libya and Yemen - conflict has resumed in the following weeks.

Oxfam has since called the efforts to build a planet-wide peace a “global failure”, levelling some of the blame on the UN security council’s failure to pass a resolution calling for the end to fighting after it was vetoed by the US