BY OLIVIA KELLEHER 

A CHARITY founder helping the vulnerable in Ukraine said that the horror of what she has seen on her current humanitarian mission to the country will never leave her.

Fiona Corcoran, of the Cork-based Greater Chornobyl Cause, established her charity in 2002 to assist all those who were left devastated by the ongoing consequences of the 1986 nuclear disaster.

She expanded her mission to provide critical support to orphans, the elderly and those in need in Ukraine, Kazahstan and Russia. Fiona, from Fountainstown, is currently in the ‘battered heart of Ukraine’ in the small town of Vyshneve outside Kyiv.

Earlier this month a Russian strike on the town hit a warehouse containing arms, setting off a series of secondary explosions. Ten people were killed and hundreds of houses were seriously damaged or destroyed.

Fiona said: ‘The horror of what I have seen will never leave me. In Vyshneve, homes are not just damaged—they are obliterated, reduced to twisted remnants, the skeletal remains of what once sheltered generations. The gardens still grow, mocking the destruction, a stubborn echo of life amid carnage.

‘I saw a hammock, empty now, that just days ago cradled a laughing child. A trampoline sits abandoned in the ruins, silent where the joyous shouts of children once rang out. Now, the only sound is the howl of grief.

‘I met Lena, whose beloved mother was slaughtered in the bombings, and her husband Igor, who tries to be strong for her though he is shattered by loss. Together they smashed down their burning door, fleeing with their 16-year-old son.’

Fiona said she stood at the Kvadrat shopping mall, once alive with shoppers, ‘now a blackened skeleton’. She described a nearby market as a ‘charred ruin’ where stallholders ‘stand in the open exposed to danger’.

She recounted: ‘One stallholder tells me, through tears, how his daughter and son-in-law died in a bombardment that came before dawn, leaving no time even to scream.’

Fiona admits that she is ‘deeply afraid’ for Ukrainians who wake each day in terror, never knowing ‘if this day will be their last’.

The charity head has also spent time in Ivanhiv, a community less than 60km from Chornobyl. She says that the needs of the people of the area ‘are greater than ever’.

Many—women in their eighties, survivors of Chornobyl, and men who once risked everything as Chornobyl liquidators—are now left with illness.

Fiona said: ‘The desperate need for care cannot be overstated. Our only inpatient facility is overwhelmed—just 30 beds for a region with more than 6,000 elderly people and 3,000 with disabilities.’

She said support has enabled the charity to bring hope and relief to many.

‘This generosity has enabled us to provide specialised beds, disability aids, therapy equipment, essential furniture, kitchen equipment, and a continuous supply of food, clothing, and hygiene products.

‘Most crucially, support has made it possible for us to acquire an ambulance—a lifeline that allows us to transport patients to the capital for the advanced care they so desperately need.’

But, she said, the need is growing more urgent by the day. The charity’s immediate and most critical project is the opening of a second inpatient care home at the former Prybirsk District Hospital.

 Donations can be made to the Greater Chernobyl Cause at www.idonate.ie/donate/cause/greaterchernobylcause