Vladimir Velengurin

"Komsomolskaya Pravda", February 8, 1995, p. 1

First explosions in suburb of Grozny, Chernorechye, rumbled in the beginning of January. The dust dissolved slowly in the gray sky.

After the first bombardment a car stopped beside me.

-- Look what they're doin'!! -- shouted Chechen driver spitefully. A Russian boy lied on the back seat, shocked, in a pool of blood. His legs were messed by bomb splinters. The car rushed away.

The next day I visited Misha Yepifantsev in a hospital. His legs were amputated above his knees. He is covered with black spots -- burns of near explosion. His mother sobbing aside.

That day Misha took buckets and went to a stream, that is the only source of pure water in that place. When airplanes boomed, he reacted as a boy: raised his head with an interest. After explosion he remembers nothing. No strangers, who took him, and brought him, dying, to the hospital...

When after surgical operation Misha woke up and saw his mother, he realized that the most terrible is over. He is too little to realize the situation. He believes he will have new legs. Now the boy gazes at books with cartoons, he can not read them yet, in spite of he is seven. In September he went to school, but his family could not afford paying 10 thousand roubles a month for it. Misha studied one month, in October he didn't go to school, and then the war began.

Gunnar Johansson, a correspondent of Swedish newspaper "Expressen", wrote an article about the boy's distress. Misha's tragedy touched every reader of "Expressen" from a common citizen to the Prime Minister. Swedes created "Misha's fund". More than 150000$ were collected for his treatment, artificial legs development, and further rehabilitation. Every day Swedish evening newspaper prints account number like a password for sympathetic Swedish hearts: No 198374-1, and publishes the increasing sum of money. Money will be used not only for Misha's treatment, but for activity of Red Cross in Chechnia.

This one of numerous maimed boys and girls in that region was gifted not a very bad fate. However, there are dozens of such children. What must they do? Who will help them?

We will continue speaking about Misha's future on pages of "Komsomolskaya Pravda" newspaper.