Gary Brown: Children suffer when adults wage war
I found the words describing the death chilling.
It was a passing that occurred thousands of miles distant from where I call home – a world away – yet it suddenly seemed close at hand.
"As he listened to his father die, the boy lay still on the asphalt," an Associated Press article reported. "His elbow burned where a bullet had pierced him. His thumb stung from being grazed.
"Another killing was in progress on a lonely street in Bucha, the community on the outskirts of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, where bodies of civilians are still being discovered weeks after Russian soldiers withdrew," wrote AP writer Cara Anna in a story done in collaboration with ABC's "Frontline."
"Many had been shot in the head."
I already had heard of the young son's loss of his father on an ABC network news telecast, a "Good Morning America" report, but putting the words in print somehow made them seem less fleeting. It wasn't a report that I could easily move on from, getting up to transition quickly from war news to coffee. Even as I poured my morning "wake-up" drink into my cup, the published words lingered, burning themselves into both my brain and my heart.
I was waking up to the realities of war.
The boy who watched his father, Ruslan Nechyporenko, die – 14-year old Yura Nechyporenko – was only a teen-ager.
Comparing young lives
I couldn't help but reflect on what I likely would have been doing at that age.
If I wasn't yet out of school for the summer, I was, at the least, sitting in a class, looking out a window at my school, daydreaming of seasonal fun to come. Riding bikes. Playing basketball or baseball. Enjoying the companionship of friends. Our neighborhood would have been a bucolic not bombed-out setting.
Yura, spelled "Yuriy" in a BBC account, and his father also were riding bikes at the time they encountered the Russian soldier, the AP writer had reported.
"They were on their way to visit vulnerable neighbors sheltering in basements and homes without electricity or running water. Their bikes were tied with white fabric, in a sign they traveled in peace," Anna wrote, reporting that they were stopped by a Russian soldier as they made their way through the war devastated community. "When the soldier stepped from a dirt path to challenge them, Yura and his father immediately stopped and raised their hands."
Moments later, Yura was shot in the hand and elbow. And his father was killed.
As silly as it seem in comparison, I couldn't help recall after reading the news report that at Yura's age I likely would have been feeling I was being treated badly because my father told me and my siblings that we had to weed some portion of the family's yard before we went with our friends to play games.
I would have been whining about my dad, not mourning him and burying him.
Enduring the waging of war
Subsequent news reports went on to say that Ruslan Nechyporenko was covered and hastily buried after he was shot. It was a temporary interment. Later friends and family dug up Nechyporenko's body and re-buried it in a more suitable grave.
Presumably, Yura is healing both a wounded body and a broken heart.
It is difficult to say how old someone should be before being forced to endure the ravages of war, but 14 seems far too young.
The Associated Press has reported that more than 200 children in Ukraine have been killed during the Russian invasion. AP notes that Ukrainian officials report the toll in young lives is even higher.
"The total number of child victims in the attacks is unknown," wrote Anna in her article, "and the accounting represents just a fraction of potential war crimes."
The article was billed as part of an ongoing investigation by AP and Frontline into such alleged "war crimes," which have been labeled in some news reports as "human rights violations."
Neither of the terms seems adequate to describe the pain and suffering Ukranian children are enduring.
Atrocities appears to be a more accurate word.
Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com. On Twitter: @gbrownREP.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Gary Brown: Children suffer when adults wage war
