Charity campaigner Ali Hewson's heart has been stolen by a 20-year-old youth -- who is living in terrible conditions in an orphanage in Belarus.

Ali, wife of U2 star Bono, is just back from a week-long trip to Belarus with Chernobyl Children's Project founder Adi Roche. Tomorrow is the 22nd anniversary of the world's worst nuclear disaster and the human tragedy is still relentlessly unfolding.

Ali revealed: "I hadn't been over there for two years, but these people are still at the bottom of the food chain. The orphanages are bad enough, but the institutions for older people are even worse. But the Vesnova orphanage, where we have been working, has much improved since I was last there.

"But I came across this young man called Yuri, who has cerebral palsy. He looks okay until you see under his duvet that both of his legs are broken and some of the bones are actually sticking out. He's just left in bed like that all the time. I'm determined to do something to help him myself. I have to.

"You wouldn't treat a dog the way he is being treated. In fact, you'd feel like running it over in order to put it out of its misery. I find it very difficult to get the picture of him out of my head."

The pair admitted that some of the sights they have seen in Belarus haunt them all the time and break their hearts, even from someplace as far away as their native Ireland.

Mother-of-four Ali now hopes to get Yuri into one of the new Homes Of Hope that have been built over there by 100 Irish aid workers. They have constructed six of these houses already in which inmates of the orphanages will be placed once they come of age.

Adi Roche revealed: "Some of them will be able to live there independently, which is great. There will be 10 people living in each house. The houses are opening tomorrow, on the 22nd anniversary of Chernobyl. By the 25th anniversary we plan to have 32 houses up and running.

"The job the Irish aid workers are doing is fantastic. They include builders, carpenters, plumbers, electricians and medical care workers, who took time off to work on these houses during the anniversary week."

Adi and Ali have made numerous mercy missions to Belarus over the years, travelling in large convoys with medical aid and all other sorts of urgent supplies, sometimes putting themselves at risk by going right into the immediate danger zone.

"But we're not doing that anymore. Duncan Stewart pointed out to us that it didn't make any economic sense, and how bad it was for our carbon footprints. So we now source what is needed in nearby countries and get it driven in. It has already saved us a huge amount of money," revealed Adi.

And children are still being born with physical and mental problems .

'It's going to continue for up to another 50 years, we've been told. So we're building for the future. People have short memories and forget that this is a genetic timebomb," said Adi.

The brave pair spent their week in Belarus with an RTE camera crew, making a new documentary on the area.

"It felt like we were seeing casualties in the middle of a battlezone.

"We witnessed one young girl having her tonsils taken out in a hospital -- without any anaesthetic. They just had to go ahead with the operation because they didn't have the medical supplies," said Ali.

Tomorrow is the last day of National Chernobyl Week during which special Babushka Doll pins were sold to raise funds.

And while Bono continues to focus his charity work on Africa, Ali is still very much involved with the Chernobyl Children's Project, with herself and Adi Roche becoming best friends down through the years.

In Belarus alone 2.2million people have been permanently radioactively contaminated. Some 2million people, of whom 500,000 are children, still live in heavily contaminated zones.

The disaster financially crippled Belarus, with the government unable to import "clean" food for the population, who have been forced to eat locally produced food.

Since 1991 the Project has brought over 16,000 children to Ireland for special "rest and recuperation" holidays and more are planned for this summer. Over e73m has also been raised for children living there.

- Richie Taylor