Youngsters from Belarus had their first ever trip to the seaside as part of the Chernobyl Children’s Project.

The children went to Scarborough – courtesy of Otley Lions – during their month-long visit to Yorkshire.

Belarus took more than two-thirds of the fallout from the notorious nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986 – and has seen a huge rise in childhood leukaemia.

The Chernobyl Children’s Project is an international organisation supporting the victims of the disaster. Every year the Leeds Support Group hosts a group of children from the affected part of Belarus for a month-long holiday in Yorkshire. They stay with local families who devote two weeks of their annual holiday to hosting them.

The period away from Belarus allows them to enjoy clean air and fresh food, and dramatically improves their state of health and their life-expectancy.

The Otley Lions decided to take the youngsters to Scarborough on Yorkshire Day after being invited to organise one of the excursions.

As Belarus is a land-locked country, none of them had ever seen the sea before.

The Otley Lions paid for the coach trip for the children, some of their hosts and members of the Leeds Support Group.

A traditional fish and chips lunch was paid for by Scarborough Lions.

A spokesman for the Otley group said: “The children enjoyed their day – a trip on the funicular railway, fish and chips, ice cream, boating in the park; but the highlight was jumping into the sea.

“As a totally new experience, they approached the sea with some understandable trepidation; but they were soon into the spirit of things – paddling and, of course, splashing each other.

“It was a delight to see them enjoying it.”

For more information about the Chernobyl Children’s Project, visit chernobyl-children.org.uk.