Cancer care for children in Kiev is struggling with overcrowding after the city's and country's largest children's hospital was bombed earlier in the week.
The children do not know when their cancer treatments can resume. Several are worried that time will not be enough.
In early June, Oksana Halak found out that her two-year-old son Dmytro had acute lymphatic leukemia. She immediately decided to take him to the Ochmatdyt children's hospital in Kiev because the hospital is "one of the best in Europe".
The mother and her son were at the hospital for his treatment when the air raid alarm started sounding around the city. They could not get to a bomb shelter because Dmytro was on a drip.
It is extremely important not to interrupt this drip, says Halak.
Felt a strong shockwave
After the first explosions, nurses helped Oksana and Dmytro move to another safer room without windows.
We felt a strong shockwave. The room shook and all the lights went out. We understood that the explosion was nearby, but we did not think it was at the hospital.
They were then forced to evacuate to a new hospital, which as a result of the attack on Ochmatdyt got double the number of cancer-sick children to treat.
After the attack, several countries have offered treatment for the children, including Astrid Lindgren's children's hospital in Sweden.
Staying in Kiev
On the same day as the attack, eleven-year-old Denys Vasjlenko was supposed to start chemotherapy treatment at the Ochmatdyt hospital. Now his treatment has been postponed indefinitely and Denys has to undergo extra tests and examinations.
Despite this, his mother Julia Vasjlenko has already decided that Denys will stay in Kiev for cancer treatment.
If we were to go somewhere with Denys' diagnosis, we would have to redo all the tests from the beginning. It can take three to four months.
And we do not know if we have that time, says mother Vasjlenko.
