Last week in Kyiv Poltava Media Club representatives held a press conference, at which the information on 48 children poisoned in the village of Khomutets, Poltava oblast, was disclosed. They all were poisoned on September 17, 1998 during a demonstration to mark the anniversary of the village’s liberation from the fascists. Then, ten minutes after the demonstration began, the children standing in the front rows started fainting with symptoms, as was later revealed, of poisoning with toxic substances, i.e., convulsions, fever, uncontrolled urination, sharp drop in blood pressure, and hallucinations. 48 children were hospitalized. However, Liudmyla KUCHERENKO, the Poltava Media Club chairman, believes the children did not undergo proper analyses and procedures, with doctors not even bothering to undress them, and blood analyses were made only hours later. Parents think that doctors deliberately delayed the procedure, waiting for the level of substances in the children’s blood to drop, so that analyses would not reveal them. However, according to Ms. Kucherenko, when blood samples were taken, the blood was dark- colored and thick, which is a typical symptom of poisoning with substances of the phosphoorganic group. Still, the parents received neither the children’s clinical charts, nor the analysis results. Meanwhile, the children with the symptoms of severe poisoning were “treated” with large amounts of drinking liquis, vitamins, and kefir.
After twelve days the symptoms started to recur and were attributed by the doctors to everyday poisoning. While serious chronic diseases, i.e., loss of eyesight, amnesia, miocardiodystrophy, and pancreatitus, which the children developed after the poisoning, are still downplayed as hereditary. Moreover, the children are denied disability status and compensation. As one of the mothers stated, doctors often threaten to take the children to asylums for hypochondria. All commissions investigating the tragedy’s causes concluded that no gas poisoning had taken place and medical assistance was timely and competent. Some doctors, whom the victims’ parents managed to meet, consider that with time the children, who even now have various health disorders, will start dying slowly in their wheelchairs. The German Red Cross, addressed by the victims, is eager to help. However, the children’s clinical charts and official doctors’ conclusions are required, which the parents are unable to obtain. The Poltava Media Club and victims’ representatives consider one of the versions of poisoning to be a leak of poisonous substances from one of the military bases in Poltava oblast. However, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry press center told The Day that prior to the ratification of the convention banning the development, storage, and use of Poisonous Battle Substances (PBS) the bases were closely guarded and to steal any amount of the substances was next to impossible. After ratification Ukraine officially announced there were no PBS on its territory, which was confirmed by three inspections by independent international experts, who visited Ukraine. In general, the issue remains open: what happened in the village of Khomutets in Poltava oblast on September 17, 1998.
