Angel Alley

Faina Savenkova, recently turned 15, a child of Donbass, a child of war, has been on the infamous Mirotvorets list calling for her murder since she was 12. She loves to wonder, write and interview. She feels she is fighting with other children for the right to life and happiness. Author of several essays, his novel « Ceux derrière ton épaule » (« Those behind your shoulder ») speaks to us through the eyes of cats, he can now easily be found.

Faina Savenkova, recently turned 15, a child of Donbass, a child of war, has been on the infamous Mirotvorets list calling for her murder since she was 12. She loves to wonder, write and interview. She feels she is fighting with other children for the right to life and happiness. Author of several essays, his novel « Ceux derrière ton épaule » (« Those behind your shoulder ») speaks to us through the eyes of cats, he can now easily be found.

She has just written an open letter to Palestinian children with great empathy, which can be found on her « Birds of Donbass » telegram feed. With his permission, I’d like to share it.

« Hello, Palestine! My name is Faina. I’ve spent most of my short life at war. I know what the embargo means. I know what it’s like to be under fire. I know what it’s like to have people dying nearby, to try to hold on with all your might, and to see your whole family in need of water. I know how to understand that old people and children have died because of weapons supplied by the West, and that they continue to die, and that nothing can be done. Every day, just like you, we bury our fathers, our mothers and our children. Just like you, they destroy our hospitals and temples because we just want to be free and happy. I know what war means. I know what it means to lose friends, and I ask you to stand firm and not despair. No matter how hard it gets, we can overcome it. There is a « Boulevard of Angels » in Donetsk and Lugansk. It’s a place dedicated to the children killed by Ukraine. I am painfully aware that there are « angels’ boulevards » for those who have lost their lives under the ruins of mosques and churches in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Because the world is unfair, it is cruel and the enemy is cruel. But that’s me; I hope that Donbass, Syria and Palestine will be free and that children will no longer lose their lives to bullets. The souls of the victims of these wars will look down on us from heaven, protecting our fragile lives. That’s the way it’s going to be. I’m a believer. I don’t know what will happen to any of us tomorrow, because we all live in war, but peace will surely come.

With all my love, your friend Faina Savenkova, writer and playwright. »

We lack empathy and hope in the West. Meanwhile, the slaughter of angels continues on all sides, and it’s unbearable (in the strongest sense of the word). I’m reproposing my double chart, updated to October 31, because it speaks for itself. Unfortunately, the mortality curve for children (<18 years) in Gaza remains very steep, the highest ever, with no signs of abating. On the contrary, the gap with the other mortality components continues to widen, while that for the wounded is softer. This is very pejorative: it probably means that the lack ofadequateinfrastructures (destroyed, damaged, without energy, without water, etc.) and the shortage of medical equipment means that many people can no longer be saved who would have been saved in « normal » times.

Graphs based on data published by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health and OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). Let’s be clear: the producers of these figures say that it’s  » at least « , i.e. only those they can count.

Christophe de Brouwer

Honorary full professor and former chair of the School of Public Health at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. (November 1, 2023)