UKRAINE: Another SOS From Chernobyl Victims, 19 Years Later

By Zoltán Dujisin Reprint | | Print |

Zoltán Dujisin

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine, May 5 2005 (IPS) - Ukraine is planning new measures to contain the fallout of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 19 years ago.

Victims of the most devastating nuclear accident ever gathered in capital Kiev on the 19th anniversary of the accident Apr. 26 to demand more state support. The government is also confronting the need to take further precautionary steps at the nuclear plant.

President Viktor Yushchenko promised on the anniversary that within 30 days his government would choose a project to build a new structure to cover the present one. The move has so far been delayed by the prohibitive 1.1 billion dollar cost of the project. The present structure was built shortly after the explosion.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said the international community must also “provide the necessary financial support” to victims. Protesters in Kiev demanded increased financial compensation, but Annan intends to direct aid towards programmes designed to “assist communities traumatised by Chernobyl to regain self-sufficiency.”

In line with UN recommendations, parliamentary hearings on Apr. 12 indicated a shift in Ukraine’s Chernobyl social policy. Available resources will target those more seriously hit by the accident, while self-initiative projects are likely to replace monetary assistance in cases considered less serious.

The highest number of victims were among the so-called “liquidators” who attempted to control the fire and cover the wreckage in the days and weeks following the explosion. They came in contact with highly radioactive material.

Their efforts helped prevent what could have been an even more catastrophic outcome – a nuclear explosion that could have made a large part of Europe uninhabitable.

About 500,000 liquidators worked at the site of the explosion. Cancer rates among them are higher than average, according to several medical studies. Gathered from military units around the former Soviet Union, these men were mostly ill-equipped, and unaware of the risks they were undertaking.

Medical records describing the level of radiation they were exposed to were eliminated by Soviet authorities, leaving them with no knowledge of just how seriously they have been affected.

“They didn’t see anything very frightening in Chernobyl,” Yuri Sayenko, scientific director of the Sociology Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences told IPS. But the health of many rapidly worsened and “they experienced a series of social and psychological shifts with time.”

Some have managed to live a normal life, and continued to work at the plant after it was reactivated in November 1986. But others are convinced they will suffer the rest of their lives and that radiation will eventually kill them or their children.

Another face of the tragedy is the hundreds of thousands forced out of homes located too close to the plant. The government divided the contaminated land into three zones. The first zone is only illegally inhabited, while in the other two many still live legally.

Those in the third zone were only advised to relocate, but residents in the second zone should have been moved. This was never done due to lack of funds.

Second and third zone residents are the main targets of a UN self-sufficiency programme that kicked off two years ago. “They live a dying life,” Sayenko said. “Nothing happens there, there is no perspective, no development.”

Many victims here believe they live on dangerous land, and that the state should meet their needs. Recent surveys have suggested that they lack interest in developing social, educational and business infrastructure.

“What is especially bad is having youth and children growing up in an atmosphere of hopelessness,” Sayenko said. “There is no interest in development, only in sustaining what they have.”

About 130,000 people who were resettled around the country ran into different problems. The Soviet Union distributed houses and land to them, and guaranteed them financial and health assistance. But it failed to give them jobs, complicating their integration in the new communities.

The tensions were exacerbated by the previous regime’s strategy of concealing information on Chernobyl and its aftermath. “Locals didn’t understand why they received all this help. They looked like normal people, like themselves,” Sayenko said. “Even their children couldn’t socialise in schools.”

The younger settlers eventually managed to adapt, but many among the older generation did not accept the new accommodation as home, and longed to return to earlier homes, often within the first zone.

About 1,000 farmers either never left, or returned immediately after the accident. The 450 who survive do not seem to fear radiation – but other Ukrainians fear them.

Each of them travels about 50 times a year to Kiev and other big cities to sell vegetables that some fear could be contaminated. The government has set several controls to assess the safety of products, but villagers often manage to bypass them. The town of Chernobyl is located about 175km north of capital Kiev.

Selling their groceries is one of the few opportunities they have of communicating with the outside world. Up to 1998 these ‘self-settlers’ where considered ghosts, living without medical inspections, shops or electricity, and helped only by a few charitable officials on duty in the zone.

Since then the situation has improved; the state provides them electricity and medical check-ups, and has offered them mobile shops. But living in an exclusion zone inevitably implies little contact with relatives, or any visitors at all.

Paryshiv, a village located a few kilometres from the nuclear plant, originally housed 500 people. It now has a population of 14.

Tree branches stretch through windows into abandoned households. Paths are indistinguishable from vegetation, and many courtyards have joined the surrounding forest.

The rare villager is the single indication of human life. Like Maria, an energetic, 76-year-old who opens her home to anyone willing to chat, and forces home-made vodka on her guests in strict adherence with Ukrainian hospitality. Her son, who fought the fire in Chernobyl died last year of a liver disease.

“It’s not easy to live without neighbours,” she told IPS. “But I would be just as lonely in Kiev.”