(AP) — What has war looked like for the children of Ukraine?
For many, it has meant sheltering in basements and subway stations while Russian forces attack cities and street fights rage. For others, it has meant a scramble to escape, leaving homes and fathers, taking trains and buses or walking for miles with their families in hopes of crossing into a safer country.
Some children have been killed or injured in the conflict. One 6-year-old girl in the southern city of Mariupol was hit during shelling. She was raced to the hospital in an ambulance but died as her parents, nurses and doctors wept.
Babies were born into a world of tumult. At the Okhmadet Children’s Hospital in the middle of the capital, tiny twin newborn brothers were swaddled in blankets on the basement floor. Across the country, in Mariupol, Kateryna Suharokova gave birth to a son, Makar, in the basement of a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward and used as a bomb shelter.
Children too young to understand the reasons and history of the conflict with Russia still saw it come home. One 3-year-old boy in Kyiv stared quietly at the open casket at the funeral of a Ukrainian soldier.
And at the cancer hospital, young patients in the basement held up signs in English for a visiting photographer: “Stop War.”
A girl catches snowflakes as she waits with others to board a train to Poland, at Lviv railway station, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022, in Lviv, west Ukraine. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Medics perform CPR on a girl at the city hospital of Mariupol, who was injured during shelling in a residential area in eastern Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. The girl did not survive. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Newborn twin brothers sleep in a basement used as a bomb shelter at the Okhmadet children’s hospital in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Serafim, 3, looks at the body of Ukrainian Army captain Anton Sydorov, 35, killed in eastern Ukraine, during his funeral, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Oncology patients hold up sheets of paper with the words “Stop War” in a basement used as a bomb shelter at the Okhmadet children’s hospital in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A girl paints on a note book next to her mother as they shelter in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter, Ukraine, Saturday Feb. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Children who fled the conflict from neighboring Ukraine play on the floor of an event hall in a hotel offering shelter in Siret, Romania, Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
Anastasia Manha, 23, lulls her 2-month-old son Mykyta, where she lives with her family members, after shelling by separatists forces in Novognativka, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
People sleep in the improvised bomb shelter in a sports center, which can accommodate up to 2000 people, in Mariupol, Ukraine, late Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Kateryna Suharokova kisses her newborn son Makar in the basement of a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward and used as a bomb shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
An oncology patient rests on a coach next to his mother, in a basement using it as a bomb shelter, while the sirens sound announcing new attacks, at the Okhmadet children’s hospital in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
The lifeless body of a girl killed during the shelling of a residential area lies on a medical cart at the city hospital of Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A child collects toys near a clothes donation point as refugees fleeing conflict in Ukraine arrive at the Medyka border crossing in Poland, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)
A toy sits among the debris near an apartment building damaged following a rocket attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A woman holds her baby inside a bus as they leave Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Passengers wait for a train to Poland, inside Lviv railway station, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022, in Lviv, west Ukraine. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A couple enter a shelter with a baby in a stroller during Russian shelling outside Mariupol, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
A woman reacts as paramedics perform CPR on a girl who was injured during shelling, at city hospital of Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. The girl did not survive. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A woman holds her daughter as they sit in a basement used as a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A refugee child fleeing the conflict from neighboring Ukraine sits in a bus at the Romanian-Ukrainian border, in Siret, Romania, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
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Across Ukraine and in refugee shelters across the borders, parents have struggled to comfort their children. Mothers rock them on subway platforms or carry them for miles in the cold. They find diversions for nights spent underground — books, toys, phones, pets. At one border station in Poland, refugees were met by boxes of donated clothes and toys.
