Nina spent her 16th birthday in a shelter for children in Lviv, Ukraine, last week, far from her family and friends in the east of the country, after she fled advancing Russian forces early in the war.
One of 23 children evacuated from another childcare center in Lysychansk, a town more than 1,000km away near the eastern front lines, Nina says she misses her friends there and does not know when she would see them again.
“They always came to visit. We’ve been through so many things together,” said Nina, who ran away from home in February last year when her mother
Ukraine has the biggest number of children living in state care in Europe, mostly because their families are either too poor or broken to look after them.
Nina spent her 16th birthday in a Lviv state shelter for children last week, far from her family and friends in the east of Ukraine, after she fled advancing Russian forces early in the war.