Chernobyl Clonmel Connection

CHERNOBYL

Clonmel Connection

Even before Russia’s brutal invasion started a few months ago millions of Ukrainian children and their families were already coping with another catastrophe inflicted on them by their oppressors. Located close to the northern Ukrainian city of Pripyat the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was – like the rest of the country – a part of the United Socialist Soviet Republic (U.S.S.R), aka the Soviet Union. On April 26 1986 a safety test on a steam turbine went wrong and led to the meltdown of No. 4 reactor and explosions that blew masses of radioactive material into the immediate area and sent clouds of the stuff across the rest of Europe. The Soviet response was to deny anything had happened on the international stage and was forced to admit to the accident when the Swedish government was about to lodge an alert with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Even then they first tried to portray it as a minor incident but when they had to evacuate the entire population of the region – some 100,000 people – because of the danger posed by dangerous levels of radioactive fallout they could no longer hide the full extent of the incident. This terrible chain of events started another reaction in Ireland that is still going today. In 2001, five years after the meltdown and the same year Ukraine became an independent country, desperate doctors using fax machines sent out the call begging for anyone who could to take children away from the radioactive environment in the region – including Belarus and Western Russia – to give their young bodies a break from the highly toxic material. One of the people to see that fax was a woman from Clonmel, Co. Tipperary Adi Roche who

was a volunteer with the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament group. She answered the call and set up Chernobyl Children International to help children and their families living in the areas impacted by the man made disaster. Before long the first group of children and their carers arrived in Ireland where they were spent several weeks living with Irish host families and helpers. Since then more than 25,500 youngsters – from babies to teenagers – have been brought to Ireland for rest, recuperation and treatment, healthy holidays which it is hoped have extended the quality and length of many of these young people. The charity also runs several other programmes and schemes aimed at bringing medical treatment and training directly into Ukraine and has fund-raised millions of dollars for the cause. Despite the danger to themselves courageous heart surgeons and medicos went into war torn Ukraine in late March to operate on sick newborns. “My life’s work has been to develop programmes that restore hope, alleviate suffering and protect current and future generations in the Chernobyl regions,” said Roche. “CCI is founded on hope and courage: the hope that the children—one by one and heartbeat by heartbeat—will thrive; and the courage to envision and create a better world.”

By a cruel twist Chernobyl was thrust back into crisis on the first day of the invasion when Russian forces seized control attacked and seized control of the defunct nuclear plant. CCI – and other authorities and groups – warned about increasing radioactivity levels in the area stemming from the disturbance caused by the attack. Ukrainian forces were able to liberate the region – and some 300,000 who had been living without supplies in bunkers – but the renewed risk of radiation fallout remains. Ironically it has emerged that Russian soldiers who occupied the nuclear plant may have exposed themselves to similar risks facing the local population. When it was able to go back in to examine the area the Ukrainian agency responsible for the radioactive plant warned that enemy soldiers had broken into research labs and stole more than a hundred radioactive materials. “Even a small part of this activity is deadly if handled unprofessionally,” the agency said. Ukraine’s energy minister said the Russian soldiers had been exposed to “shocking” levels of radioactive material and that as a result many would die “a slow death from diseases” within a year.

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Adi Roche.