Daria, 30, with daughters Sofiia, 10, and Serafym, 11 months, mother Tetiana, 49, and grandmother Nina, 74, in an emergency shelter in Lviv, Ukraine. Photo by Roman Yeremenko/CARE
Daria, 30, with daughters Sofiia, 10, and Serafym, 11 months, mother Tetiana, 49, and grandmother Nina, 74, in an emergency shelter in Lviv, Ukraine. Photo by Roman Yeremenko/CARE
Three months ago, the family fled from Kharkiv to Lviv where they live together in a shelter. Great-grandmother Nina, 74, misses her home. “I miss my garden and my flowers. We had to flee unexpectedly and leave very fast. At that time, I wanted to plant a fir tree. The tree is now waiting in a bucket of water at home.”
“It is funny, but I only brought a bowl and a knife from home. No one planned to go for a long time, so we didn’t take a lot,” says Natalia, 39.
She fled with her family from Mykolaiv on March 10 and now lives in a shelter in Lviv. “We only had one backpack each with us,” she adds.
Natalia’s daughter Kristina, 4 brought two of her stuffed animal toys: A cat and a pig. “They are both also called Kristina.”
Her brother Sasha, 15, brought two comic books, his Rubik’s Cube and some drawing materials. He loves to draw and wants to sell his paintings in an auction. “I want to use the money for my paintings to help children with cancer,” says Sasha.
He himself has suffered from cancer for five years.
“It sounded like rain, but there were no clouds,” says Maya, 62. “When I stepped out onto the balcony a missile flew by. That’s when I decided to flee West.”
She now lives in a shelter in Ivano-Frankisvsk. She was a singer, but due to COVID, she cannot sing anymore.
Her husband died a few years back. When the war arrived at her place, she was in shock and only took the essentials. The two most precious things that she brought with her are the shirt that she is wearing – it belonged to her husband, and a picture of them together on her mobile phone.
