In the summer of 1999, 11-year-old Anton Honchanka was looking to escape his contaminated hometown following history’s worst nuclear disaster.
His journey would take him from Gomel, Belarus, to a United Kingdom that was experiencing a historic total solar eclipse, a major political reshuffle by Prime Minister Tony Blair, and a music chart dominated by singles such as Livin’ La Vida Loca.
Anton was one of the children evacuated from Belarus following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in neighbouring Ukraine, after a reactor at the plant exploded and spewed out radioactive material that would spread across swathes of Europe.
Due to radiation, parents in Eastern Europe saw the Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline program (CCPL) as vital for their children’s health with over 56,000, external coming to the UK for medical aid and humanitarian support.
Thirteen years on since the incident and with the radiation still hanging in the air, Anton had set off on what he saw then as a “new adventure” thanks to the program, albeit one “not easy” for his mum to see him leave.