“Psychological trauma has no national characteristics.”
This time, our Safe Space mobile group wants to share with you the story of a family that has shocked us beyond words for a long time. We met quite recently with the members of this large and very friendly family at a meeting with refugees from Ukraine in one of the Moldovan villages. This family arrived in our country just a few weeks ago and we were the first representatives of an international organization they communicated with upon arrival in Moldova.
The family of three adults and three children lived all their lives in Ukraine, in the city of Kherson. Parents had decent jobs, children went to school, grandmother (retired) enjoyed communication with grandchildren and household chores. It all ended in February 2022.. A barrage of rockets, the crackle and noise of flying Shaheds, gunshots, explosions, sirens, tears, unbearable fear and pain and rejection of what was happening.
“We didn’t think that this horror would last so long, that everything would last for years, if we had known, we would have left the city immediately,” says Ana, mother of three. After a short time, the city came under occupation and the exit from it was closed. Days full of fear and horror began. The family had to move to the basement because the soldiers moved into the house.
“We threw into the basement what we managed to get out of the house – a blanket, warm clothes … So we lived in the basement without basic living conditions,” says Anna.
The family spent eight long months in the basement in inhumane conditions.
– “I saw everything: the cars taking the loot and the thieves who acted like they were at home. We witnessed how our neighbor was shot because he refused to cooperate with the new government… I helped bury him in the garden because there was no other way…
I saw how they took a young woman, our neighbor, the mother of two small children, put her in a car and drove away… Three days later they brought the poor woman back, exhausted and beaten, and -get her out of the car…
Only she knows what she went through and what the soldiers did to her all this time,” Grandmother Taisya told me through tears.
Anna and her family understood that they could no longer stay in the city. They tried to leave the city several times, but all attempts were unsuccessful. One of their acquaintances told them that, for a fee, he would help them leave Kherson.
“I worked in the fields in the summer and sold the car to raise the necessary amount,” says Anna. They were taken out of the city and out of the country through Crimea and taken to one of the European countries, where Anna worked for several months to raise money to get to Moldova.
“We really wanted to get to Moldova. It is safe here, there is no obvious language barrier, and our Ukraine is nearby,” says Karina, Anna’s eldest daughter. A distant relative took them to the village where they arrived. This family has been in Moldova for several weeks. Immediately after their arrival, they applied for temporary protection in Moldova. According to them, they feel safe here and came to the meeting with the Sale Space mobile group with great joy and hope. “We are grateful to the organization UNFPA Moldova and A.O Artemida for the existence and operation of a mobile support group for refugees from Ukraine,” says Anna.
It was sad and bitter to listen to the tragic stories that happened to this family.
It was touching to see the joy and gratitude in their eyes, which gives us even more confidence in how necessary and important our help is to people.
