Chernobyl’s children need to take breaks away from the radiation – but they’re facing a serious hurdle

Aug 6, 2019

The sarcophagus covering the damaged fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is seen behind a building decorated with a graffiti in the abandoned city of Prypiat April 4, 2011. Belarus, Ukraine and Russia will mark the 25th anniversary of the nuclear reactor explosion in Chernobyl, the place where the world's worst civil nuclear accident took place, on April 26. Engineers are still struggling to regain control of damaged reactors at the Fuskushima plant after last month's earthquake and tsunami, in the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986, with the government urging the operator of the plant to act faster to stop radiation spreading. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich (UKRAINE - Tags: ANNIVERSARY DISASTER ENERGY ENVIRONMENT IMAGES OF THE DAY) - GM1E74500L501

This year, the Children's Project said they could only host 600 children compared to 3,500 each year in the early 2000s. Image: REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

Aria Bendix

Innovation Reporter, Business Insider

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An 11-year-old Ukrainian girl living near the Chernobyl power plant says goodbye to her host family in Lisbon, Portugal.

Image: Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP/Getty Images

Children from Gomel, Belarus (a city about 60 miles outside Chernobyl), wave after arriving in Hanover, Germany.

Image: Holger Hollemann/Getty Images

Children ride bicycles in the village of Pysky, Ukraine.

Image: Mstyslav Chernov/AP

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