A memorial service has been held in Kyiv for the victims of a Russian missile strike on a children’s hospital on Monday.
A chamber orchestra played in the rubble of the building in Kyiv on Friday as part of the commemoration service.
Ukraine’s largest medical facility for children was caring for 627 patients at the time of the attack, which killed at least 44 people.
Dozens of children already battling life-threatening diseases were also injured.
Oksana Halak only learned about her 2-year-old son Dmytro’s diagnosis — acute lymphoblastic leukemia — at the beginning of June. She immediately decided to have him treated at Okhmatdyt, “because it is one of the best hospitals in Europe.”
She and Dmytro were in the hospital for his treatment when sirens blared across the city. They couldn’t run to the shelter as the little boy was on an IV.
“It is vitally important not to interrupt these IVs,” Halak said.
After the first explosions, nurses helped move them to another room without windows, which was safer.
Shortly after that, they were evacuated to the National Cancer Institute, and now Dmytro is one of 31 patients who, amid a difficult fight with cancer, have to adapt to a new hospital.
“The destroyed Okhmatdyt is the pain of the entire nation,” said the director general of the National Cancer Institute, Olena Yefimenko.
