Twenty Ukrainian children suffering from cancer and leukemia, accompanied by their parents fleeing the war, arrived in France on Monday for treatment as part of European solidarity in the face of the Russian invasion, a first in France.
Evacuated by plane from Poland, these children and around thirty of their relatives landed around 6.40 p.m. at Orly airport, before being directed to various hospitals in Paris and in the regions, noted a journalist from the AFP.
This operation is “a first” and “there will be others”, explained the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, who came to welcome them on the tarmac in the company of the first lady Brigitte Macron and the Minister Delegate for Foreign Affairs, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne.
“It is fundamental to provide our support to the Ukrainian population and in particular to those who were already fragile even before the war”, estimated Mr. Véran.
The 27 countries of the European Union announced last week to reserve 10,000 hospital beds for Ukrainians, following a European Council of Health Ministers. These twenty children are the first patients received by France under this solidarity mechanism.
Upon getting off the plane, Oksana Maluk immediately admits to being “relieved” to now be able to have her 8-year-old son Dmitru treated in Clermont-Ferrand, suffering from leukemia.
The features drawn behind her mask, she is visibly marked by the hardships of the last few days: she fled Chernihiv, in northern Ukraine, on March 14 and painfully reached Poland in four days, before being evacuated to France on Monday.
In her city “the hospital was bombed, it is completely destroyed, (…) but the doctors are always present and try to help the children and the civilians”, says this Ukrainian woman, whose husband stayed to fight against the Russians.
In Ukraine, “almost 150 hospitals are completely destroyed, including children’s hospitals”, Ukrainian Ambassador Vadym Omelchenko told the press, according to whom many injured or orphaned children are waiting to be evacuated from Poland to other countries. other European countries.
Ukraine also needs the help of foreign caregivers, he added, assuring that a “mission of French doctors” is being formed and should go to work in this country at war “in a few weeks”.
Nearly 3.5 million people – mostly women and children – have fled Ukraine since the start of the war, according to a UN tally released on Monday.