Chernobyl Catastrophe’s Anniversary :: Charter'97 :: News

The 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power station catastrophe, the largest man-made disaster in the history of the humankind, is marked on April 26. Traditionally a march “Charnobylsky Shliach” takes place in Minsk on April 26. This year the Minsk executive committee has officially sanctioned a meeting in front of the Chernobyl chapel (Karastayanava Street) from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Besides, the opposition activists are going to forward petitions to the Administration of the president with a demand to move people from badly contaminated areas, to provide medicines and treatment to people affected by Chernobyl, to stop production of foodstuffs in contaminated areas; to cancel limitations for humanitarian aid delivery and going abroad for sick children; to stop forcible students’ job allocation in “Chernobyl-affected” areas.

In the result of the Chernobyl power station disaster the radioactive cloud equivalent to 300 explosions of atom bombs dropped in Hiroshima has been emitted into the atmosphere. More than 70% of the radioactive fallout was scattered over Belarus. About 2 million citizens of our country had suffered from the accident, including more than 500, 000 children. The territory of Belarus has become a zone of ecological disaster for many centuries.

The Belarusian authorities are concealing the problem criminally. During the rule of Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Belarus the number of zones with regular radiation control has been cut. Social benefits and compensations for victims have been reduced; the overall number of scientific research of the topic has dropped drastically. Because of the lack of money, in 1999 a medical screening of the affected population were stopped.

On June 18, 2001 Professor Yuri Bandazheuski was charged with a bribe and sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment after an unfair trial. Yuri Bandazheuski has devoted most of his scientific work to examine the effects of the radioactive fall-out on people living in the region of Homel, particularly the impact of radioactive emissions on children.