VINNYTSIA, Ukraine (AP) — Liza, a 4-year-old girl with Down syndrome, was on her way to see a speech therapist with her mother in central Ukraine when a Russian missile rained from the sky.
She never made the appointment. Now the images that tell the story of her life and its end are touching hearts around the world.
Wearing a blue denim jacket decorated with flowers, Liza was among 23 people killed in Thursday’s rocket attack in Vinnytsia, including boys aged 7 and 8. Her mother, Iryna Dmytrieva, was among the many injured.
After the explosion, mother and daughter went in different directions. Iryna, 33, went to a hospital’s intensive care unit while Liza went to a morgue.
“She remembered reaching for her daughter and Liza was already dead,” Iryna’s aunt Tetiana Dmytrysyna told The Associated Press on Friday. “The mother was robbed of the most precious thing she had.”
Just before the blast, Dmytrieva had posted a video on social media showing her daughter struggling to reach the handlebars to push her own stroller, walking happily through Vinnytsia, wearing the denim jacket and the white one pants, her hair is adorned with a hair clip. Another video on social media showed the little girl spinning in a lavender dress in a lavender field.
After the Russian missile attack, Ukrainian emergency services shared photos showing her lifeless body on the ground next to her blood-stained baby carriage. The videos and photos have gone viral, and the world is shocked by the latest images and stories from the brutal war in Ukraine.
The wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted that she met this “wonderful girl” while filming a Christmas video with a group of children being given oversized ornaments to paint.
“The little mischievous girl then managed in half an hour to paint not only herself, her holiday dress, but also all the other children, me, the cameramen and the director… Please look at them alive,” Olena Zelenska wrote in a note about the video.
When the war began, Dmytrieva and her family fled Kyiv, the capital, to the city of Vinnytsia, 268 kilometers southwest. Until Thursday, Vinnytsia was considered relatively safe.
Dmytrieva gave birth to her only daughter when she was 29 years old. The girl was born with a heart defect, but doctors saved her. She also suffered from Down syndrome.
“Liza was a sunny baby,” her great-aunt recalls. “They say these kids don’t understand everything or know how to do it. But that is not true. She was a very bright child. She could draw, talked, always helped adults and always smiled. Always happy.”
For her mother, Liza was the greatest gift of her life.
“She loved her infinitely,” said the great-aunt.
The explosion site has since been cordoned off. People come to leave flowers, candles and teddy bears. Another item in a makeshift shrine is a page from a children’s textbook. Among the mourners are mothers deeply touched by the story of Iryna and Liza Dmytrieva.
“Innocent children are dying,” said Kateryna Kondratyuk, bursting into tears at the scene of the explosion.
Iryna is now conscious and in intensive care.
“She’s a fighter. She will get off. We are all praying for them,” says her aunt.
Liza’s father was at the morgue on Friday doing the paperwork to receive his daughter’s body for the funeral.
___
Andrew Katell in New York contributed.
___
Follow all AP stories on developments in the Ukraine war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.