Story of Anjela - IDP Mykolaiv
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Photo Credit:
Myriam Renaud/NRC
Camera make / model:
ILCE-7M4
Country:
Ukraine
Location:
Mykolaiv
NRC Region:
Central & Eastern Europe
Themes:
Protection from violence, Shelter and Settlements
Keywords:
Winter, woman, idp, Ukraine, mykolaiv
Demography:
Woman
Informed Consent?
Yes
Capture Date
13 February 24
Photo Caption:
Portrait of Anjela, with the portrait of her late father, Volodymir, in Mykolaiv, South Ukraine.
Anjela, 44 years old is from Blahodatne, a small village 45km away from Mykolaiv. She used to live there with her husband and their two children. She worked as a school teacher. At the end of March 2022, the family left the village on foot and now live in Mykolaiv. Anjela lost her father Volodymir, 65 years old, as a result of hostilities in her village. Her grandfather also died soon after being evacuated from the village.
Full story:
Anjela and her family comes from Blahodatne, a small village in the region of Mykolaiv, South Ukraine. “At first I taught in my village, and then our school was closed and we were transferred to Partyzanske,in a neighboring village. We had more than 50 pupils. The school was from 1st to 9th grade. We had a very good school. In the same place, there was a school and a kindergarten. We had a lot of farmers growing vegetables. It was very pretty.”, Anjela recalled.
Shortly after the full-scale invasion started, Anjela and her family left the village: “At one point, heavy shelling began. We sat in the cellar with my husband, our two children and my mother. We stayed there until the morning; the shelling lasted all night long. We did not know if we would be able to go out from the cellar alive or not. In the morning only, we all got out of the cellar, and we sneaked into the house, took some things in a bag and began to run away from the house, to look for another house in the village to stay overnight somewhere. My mother-in-law’s house was hit that night, half of the house was destroyed. We understood that we couldn’t remain in the village. We gathered as a group of thirty people. We decided to be the first ones to flee the village. We took simple a blanket and tore it into pieces to make white flags. We walked 15km under the shelling, one after another. We were afraid of being shot. So we needed to run fast. My mother and mother-in-law did not go because their legs hurt. They are 65, they couldn't.”, Anjela explained.
Anjela and her family reached Mykolaiv, while her father and grandfather remained in the village. “My grandfather stayed there. He did not want to leave. As an elderly man, he said that he would not go anywhere from his house. My father stayed with him. My mother and mother-in-law were taken out by the neighbors after we left.”, Anjela explained.
“At that time, there were 11 people who did not leave. My grandfather had a birthday on April 2, 2022, and father died just on his birthday on April 2nd. My father came to my grandfather, congratulated him, fed him. When he returned home, neighbors said a missile hit, and my father then died. People who were still in the village at that time, pulled him out from under the rubble, it was all under fire. They took him, he did not have half a head, his internal organs were torn out, there were no fingers there and they found some kind of blanket. We were told that there were five such craters in the garden, from the projectiles. So my father was buried deeply, covered in a blanket. He was 65 years-old”, Anjela explained.
“It's good that people buried him and put the cross, so at least we knew where his body was. Others did not have this chance. Because at that time, people released cows, pigs, dogs. Everyone was hungry and just if there was a corpse, they ate it.”, Anjela shared.
When leaving her village, Anjela and her family thought they would be able to return soon: “We thought, after a week or two and we'll be able to go home. But the fighting went on for nine months, and we could only return there after nine months. And after nine months, everything was destroyed.”
“Honestly, I cried about two years. For the first year and a half, I thought I would just go crazy. Something was happening with me, that for sure I needed a psychologist. I wanted to cry, I didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to go home”, she shared. “It was very difficult for the children. What they experienced, for us it was like a terrible nightmare. Now it seems to me, that my daughter has already coped with it, and the son does not want to talk about it. I see that it is difficult for him, but he doesn’t want to talk about it.”, Anjela explained.
After her father died, Anjela tried to take her grandfather out of the village, but it was impossible: “At some point, only 6 elderly, including my grandfather, remained in the village. There, in the village, there was no light, no water, no food. You know it's cold in spring. And these are people who need warmth, and it is cold in the cellar. One old man came out, wanted to warm in the sun, just opened the door and was there was a missile, which killed him to death. When strong fighting started, soldiers began to evacuate them, one by one on stretchers. One person was taken out per day. My grandfather was the last one taken out of the village.” Anjela met him at the hospital in Bashtanka. “We took care of him, because he was in bad condition. Then I brought him to my mother in Ternopil, where they lived. He lived in Ternopil, and by February of that year [2023], he went crazy and died.”
“I lost my father, I lost my grandfather and we lost everything we had.”, Anjela shared.
In April 2023, her father’s body was exhumated and he was buried in a cemetery close to Mykolaiv. “At that time our cemetery was still mined, so we could not bury him there, in our village cemetery.”, Anjela explained.
“My house was destroyed on the 15th of April, two weeks after we left. And everything that was in the backyard, there was a shed, a garage, a car, it all burned down.”, Anjela added.
“You know, we hoped so much, it was so hard, because we hoped. We thought we would go back there, we wanted to go home. And when we arrived, we saw that the house was gone. Our village is 95% destroyed. Until now, it is still mined. There is nowhere for us to return. So we cried a lot and calmed down. You know the most painful thing that we lived, we had everything. And at one point we were thrown out of our house, we were left with nothing, and we came here to start all over again.”
Anjela shared that resuming work as a school teacher online 2 months after the start of the full-scale invasion helped her through difficult times. “Communication with children helps. I always start my class by asking what is your mood, how do you feel? Then we begin a class.(
Anjela found comfort with her family “Communication with mom and children help. My daughter is so positive. She says Mom, we'll be fine, don't worry.”
Marker lat / long: 49, 32 (WGS84)