Bradford Ice Arena's head skating coach, who was caught up in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, has played host to a group of Chernobyl children.

The group of 14 youngsters was invited to the city centre rink as part of a month-long list of activities and events organised by the Chernobyl's Children's Project UK.

Every year the project flies almost 500 children from the Minsk and Gomel areas in Belarus, which lies off the Ukrainian and Polish boarders near the disaster site, to the UK for a four-week holiday.

Every child has been diagnosed with different forms of cancer and the recuperative holiday with Yorkshire families provides them with fresh air, exercise and medical care which can add two years to their young lives.

Uri Brekhov, 37, from the Ukraine, was living with his family in the city of Kiev only 50 miles away from Chernobyl when he got news of the nuclear leak at the power station in April 1986.

He said: "At first we didn't find out about it because the government covered it up but as soon as I did I took my family as far away as possible to the seaside.

"Everybody has been affected by it in the Ukraine. My daughter Alina, who's twelve, was born in the summer that year and she has problems with her eye which might be related to the disaster."

Uri has been head coach at the arena for three years and praised the Chernobyl children's skating skills.

He said: "They took to it straight away. We taught them just simple things like basic skating and skating on one leg. The girls were quite good but they usually are when they're young because they tend to have better balance than the boys. Once they get past 15-years-old, though, the boys tend to get better."

One of the children, Sasha Janochkin, said he'd been ice skating before in Spain but Bradford was "the best".

Bradford Ice Arena's director, Mrs Krystyna Rogers, said it was the second year the venue had played host to children affected by Chernobyl.

She said: "The Ice Arena looks forward to the children's visit every year. We were only to happy to be able to offer our services for such a needy cause."

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