Adi Roche condemns ‘ultra-provocative’ Chornobyl attack

Cork-based humanitarian Adi Roche has slammed Russia’s recent drone attack on a nuclear waste storage facility at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Ms Roche said Sunday’s attack has “potentially scuppered” recent whispers of peace-talks and ceasefire in Ukraine.

She said the attack undermines and is contrary to everything she and humanitarian aid charity Chornobyl Children International are trying to achieve.

Founder and voluntary CEO of the organisation, Ms Roche is now appealing as a first step towards peace negotiations, for the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, with its thousands of tons of highly radioactive material, to no longer be targeted.

She said: “We must invoke the Hague Convention which defines any attack on a nuclear facility to be a ‘war crime’.

“My greatest fear in this conflict is that the next Chornobyl will be Chornobyl itself. This sacred area, an area of utter vulnerability and danger, a special area of human tragedy, could once again have deadly radioactive contamination released which would spread everywhere.

“This weaponising of nuclear power signifies to the world that the nature of modern warfare has changed forever and brings with it a sense of foreboding for wars of the future,” said Ms Roche.

Unprecedented attack

Ms Roche also pointed out that never before in the history of the atomic age have nuclear stations been used as weapons of war until now, insisting that they should be “off limits” due to their lethal potential to destroy the planet.

She said the weaponising of nuclear facilities has resulted in a collision between warfare and nuclear power which has created a “whole new threat” with potentially devastating, unimaginable consequences for humankind for centuries to come.

“This is nuclear terrorism,” stated Ms Roche.

“Every day that peace in Ukraine is denied, we are rolling the dice. If allowed to continue, one day our luck will run out.

“We are staring down a barrel of a loaded gun,” she added.

According to Ms Roche, any potential explosion or meltdown at Chornobyl or any other nuclear power plant, by accident or design, would cause irreversible damage to the environment and human life that will last for thousands of years.

Chornobyl has vast silos of nuclear waste and water, which are highly dangerous and volatile, along with what Ms Roche describes as hundreds of “shallow nuclear graves” scattered throughout the exclusion zone.

“In the name of humanity; in the name of the children, please stop this war and declare Chornobyl and all nuclear power plants as ‘No War Zones’ as a starting point,” said Ms Roche.

“40 years on, Chornobyl has become a symbol, a potent enduring metaphor for catastrophe, a ‘cautionary tale’ we need to take heed of, making sure never again. We neglect Ukraine at our peril,” she concluded.