Call for ‘clean food fund’ for Chernobyl-affected areas

Humanitarian Adi Roche will today call on the UN to create a “clean food fund”, to improve food monitoring, and to reinstate radiation health checks for people living in Chernobyl-contaminated regions.

Ms Roche, the voluntary CEO of the Irish charity Chernobyl Children International (CCI), will also call for the establishment of a global fund to help the surviving liquidator heroes — those who were drafted in to fight the radioactive fire in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant which exploded 30 years ago today.

Last week, on her 30th visit to the region, Ms Roche met representatives of the estimated 700,000 surviving liquidators whose action in the first 48 hours after the explosion saved Europe from an even greater nuclear disaster. They appealed to her to bring their stories and their voices to the UN.