After a missile hit the maternity hospital in Vilnyansk, Zaporizhia, there was no trace of Serhii among the rubble. Her mother, Maria Kamianetska, was rescued alive and with minor injuries, but the rescue teams now continued the search for her newborn, with only two days of life —and the only one admitted to that hospital ward that night. With no hope of finding it further, they stared at what appeared to be a doll with its face towards the ground. “He is my son,” Maria Kamianetska blurted out.
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Serhii is the only fatality from the missile attack that hit the maternity hospital last Wednesday and the story of his short life has now been told by The Washington Post. EITHER father, Vitalii Podlianov, never knew his newborn son in life — Four-year-old Benjamin, who had come into the world after his seven-year-old son asked him for a younger brother. All he saw was a photo of the baby with a white hat on her head, her eyes closed, and wrapped in a cotton blanket. It was the child’s mother who sent him the image of her, accompanied by the good news: “You have a son.”
He was the second child in the family, moving to a larger house in Novosolone, the birthplace of Maria and Vitalii. EITHER couple found out they had another child on the way in late February, precisely at the same time that Russia invaded the Ukraine and the war broke out. The battlefront at Zaporizia was an hour from the family home, but it got closer and closer as the months passed.
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Despite the difficulties imposed by the war, the family gathered everything necessary to welcome their fourth child, from the crib to the stroller. The brother also organized his favorite toys, including a child-sized tractor, hoping to share it with the newborn. A few days before the expected delivery date, Vitalii took Maria to a relative’s house that was closer to the hospital in Vilnyansk. — all to ensure that no military assault would jeopardize the birth of the baby.
Maria went to the maternity ward by ambulance in the early hours of Monday, November 21, 2022. Serhii was born at 8:20 am that same day, after two contractions: he was healthy, weighed about 2.7 kilos and was 50 centimeters long.
Two days later, at two in the morning, shortly after his mother had nursed him and put him to sleep in his crib, Serhii was buried in the rubble of the maternity walls, hit by a missile. Maria, dressed in a nightgown, was hit by a piece of cement but managed to free herself. She pushed aside the debris she found on the way to the crib, but when she finally got there, Serhii wasn’t there. While she was looking for him, her mother ended up being removed from the place. She had nothing but wounds on her legs.
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But Serhii expanded the list of more than 440 children who have died since the start of the war in Ukraine: the newborn’s body had been projected out of the cradle with the impact of the missile in the maternity ward. She is now the youngest victim of the war that is being waged on Ukrainian territory. At her funeral, just a day after her death, Serhii appeared to have no more than a few scratches on his face, The Washington Post reports. He was buried in a coffin measuring just over 3 feet. The brothers did not participate in the ceremony: the next day, in the company of his mother, they visited Serhii’s urn. They took milk and cookies.
Source: Observadora
