Yuliya gently rocks her newborn baby Vera, only days old, in the basement of a medical centre in Kyiv.
© UNICEF/UN0604225/Ratushniak
It took Yuliya two days travelling on foot from her home outside Kyiv before she reached the safety of this health centre. There were moments when she thought she might not make it here at all amid the shelling and explosions that have rocked the area.
“I had to travel across fields and through forests,”
she says, adding that due to certain health issues,
not every facility would have been able to help
her safely deliver her child. “But thanks to God and
the doctors, I now have a baby – and I’m alive.”
- Yuliya says
Despite the ongoing violence, UNICEF is on the ground in Ukraine delivering urgently needed supplies and ensuring that families can receive the treatment they need.
Yuliya is just one of the many women and children who have found shelter at the centre, the basement of which has been turned into a makeshift maternity ward. Most of the women here only leave the basement when they need to – to wash or get something to eat.
UNICEF is doing everything it can to respond to the urgent needs of children and families inside Ukraine and in neighbouring countries.
By purchasing a Newborn Welcome Pack you can give a soon-to-be mother the essential supplies she needs for a safer birth.