David Beckham hands over Instagram account to Ukrainian doctor in Kharkiv

By Toyin Owoseje, CNN

Updated 1118 GMT (1918 HKT) March 21, 2022

David Beckham, an ambassador for UNICEF since 2005, urged his Instagram followers to donate to the charity.

(CNN)David Beckham has handed over control of his Instagram account to a doctor in Ukraine, in a bid to highlight the «amazing work» of medical professionals caring for patients amid the Russian invasion of the country.

Throughout Sunday, the former England football captain, who has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2005, enabled Dr. Iryna — head of a perinatal center in Kharkiv — to show his 71.6 million followers the conditions under which she and her colleagues are working. During the takeover, organized by UN children's agency UNICEF, Iryna, who is identified only by her first name, posted clips and images from the facility in Ukraine's second-largest city on Beckham's Instagram Stories and revealed how the war had affected her role and the work of her team. Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher raise $30 million in donations for Ukrainian refugeesIryna said she now works «24/7,» adding that while her team were «probably risking (their) lives» working during the conflict, «we love our work.» Writing on Instagram Stories, she said: «On the first day of the war, all pregnant women and mothers were evacuated to the basement. It was a terrible three hours that we spent together. Read More»Unfortunately, we can't take babies who are in intensive care to the basement because they rely on life-saving equipment," she wrote alongside photographs of newborns in the intensive care unit connected to oxygen generators. In another clip, she filmed a young mother, Yana, holding her son, Mykhailo, who was born with breathing problems.81 executions in Saudi Arabia on