Chernobyl boys treated in Havana | A …

Chernobyl is today a tragedy that has become a fiction. The HBO and Sky miniseries revive the threat of the nuclear holocaust, but as in any construction of meaning, cut / paste tells a half-truth. Outside, many stories like those of Aleksander Savchenko and Roman Gerus, two Ukrainian children – now adults – have fallen victim to the disaster that spread radioactivity over more than 142,000 square kilometers of European territory. But their cases, unlike the thousands of deaths, statistics on persistent pollution and anonymous heroes presented by television production, would be worthy of another film. For its natural landscape, the beaches of Tarará should be chosen, very close to Havana and where April 29, 1990 began an epic of solidarity that has little press. Some 23,000 children affected by nuclear escape have arrived in Cuba to be rehabilitated through free treatment. Aleksander and Roman were among them. The first stayed on the island and had a daughter. The second recalls how he enjoyed each of his three re-education trips 9,448 kilometers from his country.

With surgical precision, Cubans measured their own Chernobyl figures, with which they were directly involved. 26,114 Ukrainians, Belorussians and Russians went to the Tarará complex. The data comes from the Ministry of Health. Of these, 23,000 were children. Fidel Castro's government housed them in a complex of buildings which, until the 1950s, served as a spa center for the civilian and military caste that supported the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Your environment is dreamy. Beaches of fine white sand, a turquoise sea dazzling and small palm swaying in the wind of the Caribbean. It was here that Cuba welcomed, badisted, cured and sent back the children affected by the reactor crash built by the Soviet Union.

The majority returned to their country of origin. Savchenko is married and stayed in Cuba. He was also received as a stomatologist. Journalist Rosa Miriam Elizalde tells her story on the website Cubadebate, which also quotes a recent publication of it on Facebook: "50 Ukrainian children will be served in Cuba as part of a new program of cooperation inspired by the program "Children of Chernobyl." Cuban solidarity extends well beyond treatments in the soft sands of Tarará – perhaps the most beautiful beaches in eastern Havana – that lasted from 1990 to 2011.

The island has an unalterable tradition of humanitarian aid, recognized by young people like Aleksander and Boris. The children of Chernobyl did not only receive it. Also those who suffered the earthquake in Armenia in 1988 and even "the Brazilians who handled a radioactive cesium 137 source in the city of Goiania, another nuclear accident that contaminated hundreds of people in 1987, a year later Chernobyl and it's spoken, "says Elizalde.

Gerus was interviewed by the BBC channel and remembers that he went to the island three times. "It was not like being in the hospital, even the sickest kids had a lot of fun," he says. When he was treated for the first time at age 12, he was six months old. Upon his return with 14 years, he stayed for three months and at age 15, he returned for 45 days. "It was different every time, but I appreciated them all, it's something that I fondly remember, I want to go back to Cuba with my family to show them the island," he says gratefully. .

A noteworthy fact is that the program of badistance to the victims of the disaster was maintained during the special period. The Soviet Union has disintegrated and Cuba is going through the worst stage of its revolutionary history. Despite this difficulty, they continued to receive patients with cancer, cerebral palsy, malformations and even psychological disorders. The rehabilitation program was led by Cuban doctors Julio Medina and Omar García, who clbadified the patients into four groups according to their condition. Those who suffered from serious illnesses and stayed for several months in the Tarará complex. Those who had to receive hospital care but who did not suffer from serious pathologies. Those who were receiving outpatient treatment and who were in better condition and remained on the island at most for two months.

One of them was the Ukrainian Khrystyna Kostenetska. Asked by the British channel, he said he went to Cuba on two successive trips in 1991 and 1992: "Both times, I went there for 40 days. during which the human body is able to recover from a low dose of radiation. "The woman also recalled that" there were "children with vitiligo who had to wear long sleeves and cover themselves with the sun. despite this, the Cuban climate has healed some of them and has accelerated the recovery of many others. "

Fidel Castro, wearing his clbadic olive green uniform, received these guys at the foot of the plane. In the pictures kept at that moment, we can see the unbelief and surprise of these blonde children with blue eyes and Slavic features. Juventud Rebelde in his edition of March 31, 1990, entitled: "Letter to Fidel from the parents of Chernobyl" and "For little princes, the helping hand is tense". Today, the children of these miners of the 90s should be treated under the new cooperation agreement with Ukraine. Because the consequences of an atomic catastrophe such as that described by the Swedish miniseries Johan Renck and written by the American Craig Mazin persist in the following generations.

There is also the feeling of gratitude towards Cuba in the countries most affected by the accident of April 26, 1986. The explosion of reactor 4 of the Chernobyl plant, near the ghost town of Prypiat completely evacuated in the north of Ukraine and very close to the border with Belarus. At 9,458 kilometers, thousands of children have found relief to cope with the aftermath that left them one of the two largest nuclear disasters in history (the other is Fukushima happened in Japan ). The majority returned to good health in his country. Others want to return to Havana to return to the beaches of Tarará, where perhaps the best moments of their childhood took place. Dr. Savchenko is another Cuban on the island. And Chernobyl is an uncomfortable memory turned into a mini-series that turned against the Soviet bureaucracy that claimed to hide it.

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