Chernobyl service remembers victims

A CITY paused yesterday to remember the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Hundreds of people gathered for a ceremony in Cork’s Bishop Lucey Park to mark the 20th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident.

They stood in silence as the names of the victims were read out.

Students from Our Lady of Lourdes national school held photographs of some of the victims as white doves were released.

Organised by the city council in association with the country’s leading Chernobyl charities — the Cork-based Chernobyl Children’s Project and the Greater Chernobyl Cause — the event included an ecumenical service, poetry readings and an address by Iryna Yefremova, Charge D’Affair Ukrainian Embassy.

As leading Chernobyl campaigner Adi Roche was in Dublin presenting President Mary McAleese with a copy of her book, Chernobyl Heart, those in Cork heard a young girl, originally from Belarus, speak of the dangers of radiation and the kindness of the Irish people.

Elena Canty, aged 16, a pupil at St Aidan’s Community College in Dublin Hill, is a wheelchair user.

From Minsk, she was first brought to Ireland for rest and recuperation in 1995.

She was adopted soon afterwards by the Canty family from Ballyvolane.

Lord Mayor Deirdre Clune unveiled a plaque and dedicated a birch grove at the entrance to the park as the Chernobyl Remembrance Birch Grove.

Speaking in Dublin, Ms Roche said the cause of Chernobyl has become a byword for the generosity of the Irish people.

“Today as I speak, over 90 volunteers from Ireland are distributing €3 million worth of humanitarian and medical aid to the Chernobyl-affected areas of Belarus, Western Russia and Northern Ukraine,” she said. “A team of US cardiac surgeons, funded by Ireland, are performing life-saving operations in our name.”