Seven-year-old girl who escaped war-torn Ukraine for cancer treatment in Israel dies in Iranian attack

A young girl who escaped Ukraine to get treatment for a rare form of blood cancer died in Israel this week. The disease did not kill her; humans did. Her heart-wrenching story is a testimony to the common man's struggle to survive in a world where world leaders are out to reign supreme by using missiles and bombs, without a care about the people who live in these countries. Seven-year-old Nastya Buryk's father is still fighting the war against Russia, while his entire family has now perished in an Iranian attack far from home. In 2022, Nastya's father joined the Ukrainian army after Russia invaded the country. He is a soldier of the elite 95th Airborne Assault Brigade. The same year, Nastya was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a rare cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow.

Her mother, Maria, shared the news on social media: "On August 29, 2022, we heard the terrible news: 'Your daughter has cancer.'" She added that since that day, she has been "living in a parallel reality, where her main aim is to save her little girl, not to give up, and breathe. Nastya underwent her first course of chemotherapy in Ukraine. Her condition improved, but she suffered a relapse.

Ukraine was fighting a war, and the country was not equipped to treat Nastya.

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The family started looking at their options and decided to take her to another country. They got some charitable donations, but largely using their own money, they went to Israel in December 2022, almost a year before the Hamas attack.

Nastya and her mother were now out of a war zone. She underwent a bone marrow transplant, but it failed. Leukaemia continued to hold the little one. The family started falling short of money. Her mother shared their ordeal on social media, while her father, Artem, appealed for donations in videos recorded from the front line. One hospital even discharged Nastya because her mother could not pay the bills.

Soon, doctors suggested a new line of treatment to make the failed bone marrow transplant a success. Her mother shared that "it would be a risk, but without it, the disease would win, and they had to remain hopeful. Amid this, Nastya's grandmother decided to go to Israel this year to support the young one and her mother. She took with him two of Nastya's young cousins to get them a proper education, which was hard to come by in Odesa, where missiles continued to wreak havoc.

Then Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, and the family once again found itself in a war zone. It attacked Iran and killed several of its officials. Iran responded with a barrage of missile and drone attacks, one of which struck the apartment building in Bat Yam where Nastya and her family were staying on June 13. All of them died.