Dozens of infants are being held in a basement used as a makeshift bomb shelter in the capital of Ukraine. The painful photos published by the Associated Press show “at least 20 babies born to surrogate mothers.”

The babies are motherless. They were all born to surrogate mothers with the intention of eventually making it to their foreign parents around the world; many of them in the United States.

The parents who hired the surrogate mothers are unable to travel to the war torn country and bring their babies home. “Some just a few days old, the infants are well cared for, but even below ground the blasts of occasional shelling can be heard clearly” reports the Associated Press.

The nurses at the center are taking care of the newborns, but they are also stranded in the shelter because it is too dangerous to return to their homes. 51-year-old nurse Lyudmilia Yashchenko said “now we are staying here to preserve our and the babies’ lives.”

Her two sons, ages 22 and 30, are fighting in the war. “We are almost not sleeping at all. We are working round the clock” she said. The Associated Press writes that Ukraine “has a thriving surrogate industry and is one of the few countries that allow the service for foreigners”

The parents for these babies live around the world. Yashchenko said the babies currently in hiding are waiting for parents from Europe, Latin America and China. She also would not say how many parents have been able to come to get their children, how many babies are still waiting for their parents, or how many surrogate women will be going into labor soon.

Yashchenko says plenty of baby supplies and food for the young charges exist currently, but they are waiting out the war, hoping the children can soon be picked up and taken home before they run out of supplies.