Time is running out to evacuate young cancer patients who are sheltering in the basement of a hospital in Chernihiv, northern Ukraine.
That's the warning from a local children's charity EVUM co-founded by Serhii Zosymenko.
"The Russian attacks on the city in recent days included strikes on schools and an apartment building - we need to get these children to safety," he explained.
"The younger children think it’s some kind of a game that we run to the basement when it gets noisy outside but the older children understand that there is a war going on.
"They see their mothers crying. But they also know that they are surrounded by people who will look after them."
Mr Zosymenko said that the children are mostly sleeping in a first floor corridor of Chernihiv Regional Children’s Hospital as it is safer than higher floors.
They are among a small group of cancer patients who are too sick to be treated in their homes.
He and his fellow volunteers at EVUM have plans to evacuate the children and their mothers to Italy for treatment - if they can get them out.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said Russian forces control some of the villages along their planned escape route and it is too dangerous to embark on the journey just yet.
"The evacuation plan that we had prepared is impossible for now - the children could be shot by the invading forces.
"Time is running out for us - we have medical supplies for one to three weeks at the most. There are no fresh supplies coming in. May God help us."
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Mr Zosymenko is now hoping that a so-called "humanitarian corridor" will open up and allow EVUM evacuate the children to safety.
"The kids told me they want to go back home, they want to go to school - they are tired of trying to breathe through the dust in the basement.
"We need a safe corridor on the road to Kyiv and from there we can get to Italy - we have no other way out."
He added: "Our volunteers and the staff of this hospital are ready to give their lives to protect these children."
The town of Chernihiv lies near the Ukrainian border with Belarus, around 120km northeast of Kyiv, which the Russian forces have been trying to invade from the north.
Chernihiv's deputy mayor Regina Gusak told AFP yesterday that the city was hit by a Russian "bombing attack".
There were reports that up to 33 people had died with 18 more injured.
