Yozef stava suonando nel parco giochi quando un russo ha colpito. Sua madre lo copriva con il suo corpo per proteggerlo. Ora sta fisicamente bene, ma il trauma rimane

On July 20, she was at a playground with her 6-year-old son and a neighbor’s daughter when a drone exploded just a few meters away. Kateryna suffered shrapnel wounds, and her son, Yozef, was also injured.

“When it flew that way (he points) and didn’t fall, it flew further, turned around, went that way again, then turned around again and finally crashed here,” 6-year-old Yozef Bielomar recalls of the Russian drone strike near the playground.

The crater from the explosion is less than 30 meters from where they were. Kateryna Bielomar says she, her son, and the neighbor’s daughter were standing near a tree when the drone flew over them the first time. She remembers calling the children to her:

“I asked them to come play near the tree. I can’t even explain why I did that, maybe some instincts kicked in. I told them that if there’s an explosion, they should cover their ears, open their mouths, and lie flat on the ground. A bit later, there was this deafening sound, it was a really loud roar. And the only thing I remember doing was throwing myself over the kids behind the tree to shield them.”

Kateryna says everything happened very quickly, and at first, she couldn’t believe it was real. She adds that normally there are a lot of kids playing in that area, but after the drone flew over the first time, most people left. Only she, her son, the neighbor girl, and one man remained.

“It felt like the blast wave really shook us. It pushed Mom a bit, and I was slammed against a tree and my side started to hurt,” says Yozef.

Only at the hospital, while a surgeon was examining her son, did Kateryna realize she had also been injured:

“I felt pain, but didn’t think it was a real wound. I thought it was just the blast wave that pushed me. Later, when they did an X-ray, they also found an injury on my arm, I hadn’t even noticed it.”

Kateryna and her son both experienced acute stress reactions after the blast. She says they still haven’t recovered emotionally:

“The sound of a car now feels like the noise of a Shahed,”

As we speak, air raid sirens sound in the background, and Yozef asks his mother to go with him to the shelter.

[https://suspilne.media/sumy/1072063-nakrila-ditej-sobou-ak-pocuvautsa-zinka-ta-ii-6-ricnij-sin-aki-travmuvalis-vnaslidok-udaru-bezpilotnika-v-sumah/](https://suspilne.media/sumy/1072063-nakrila-ditej-sobou-ak-pocuvautsa-zinka-ta-ii-6-ricnij-sin-aki-travmuvalis-vnaslidok-udaru-bezpilotnika-v-sumah/)

So yesterday my friend came over with his family.

His 5 year old daughter told a story about a fountain and her wish there. The wish was the bombing to stop. I’m a 90s kid, like many in that era we were poor but I was a happy kid and afraid of nothing.

Its heartbreaking what kind of life kids in Ukraine have nowadays.