Fourteen-year-old Anna was forced to flee her home town in eastern Ukraine along with her family. They now live in an old house in western Ukraine that they share with other families. In a state of disrepair, the house has crumbling plaster, damaged flooring, broken windows, damp and mold.
The house Anna and her family now live in after fleeing their original home is broken down and cold - far from what they had before the war.
Christmas is approaching but the holiday season seems to belong to another life, another place – one that’s now lost forever. There are 3.7 million people still displaced within Ukraine – many of them living everyday with trauma, poverty and uncertainty.
The house Anna once lived in on the main street of Soledar, Donetsk region, has been destroyed. In fact, the whole of Soledar, a strategic salt mining town, now lies in ruins – along with the peacetime life she once enjoyed.
Anna’s mother, Oksana, said, “I remember my feelings when I was looking from the window of the evacuation bus at the place where I grew up and where my children grew up. It was an enormously heavy feeling of loss and insecurity.”
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“Nobody could believe that this war would actually happen,” she added. “Even after the first couple of days, we all hoped that it would end very soon. But after a while, everyone understood: this is a catastrophe.
“The bombings became more and more frequent and it was dangerous to go outside. The town became full of Ukrainian soldiers and military equipment. They were going to meet the Russian armada, which was ten times bigger than our army. Many Ukrainian soldiers gave their lives to stop the Russians at least temporarily to give us a chance to escape.”
“First my children were evacuated,” she continued. “They stayed in a temporary shelter, worrying about me and about our relatives, especially during the periods when there was no mobile phone connection.
Anna comforts her mother.
“When the Russians got close to where we lived, I filled a couple of suitcases with clothing and got on the evacuation bus. In one of the refugee camps there was a programme of refugee allocation. Together with one group I went to Sarny. Soon my children joined me. When we saw each other again, we were smiling and crying at the same time. The children didn’t want to let go of hugging me for a long time. It was how they felt secure.”
The family, now living as refugees in their own country, share cramped quarters.