Anna’s story

My name is Anna and I’m from Ukraine.

On February 24, 2022, I became one of many Ukrainian women who lost everything that makes us happy. This was the morning my first child heard the sounds of sirens and explosions. There was no time to come to our senses, no time to pack our things, we were not allowed to realize there was a war.

They came for us as Liberators but what they really came for was to free us from the peaceful sleep of our children, from our husbands, from our cozy apartments, from our futures, and from the futures of our children. My city, the hero city of Chernihiv, was one of the first to be hit by heavy artillery and air strikes, as it stands on the border between Russia and Belarus.

My children’s dental clinic was the first strategic facility that was destroyed by the aggressors. I lost my job. On the eighth day, I was released from my home. An air bomb hit next door, the blast knocking out the windows of my apartment.

In those first days, you cannot escape the shock, you do not believe what is happening to you. Everyone is trying to call their relatives and friends to hear their voices and find out if they are safe. Everyone disperses in all directions, some go back home to their villages, some stay in the city cellars.

Our children became children of the underground. It was cold and damp there so they stopped eating. They had to be spoon fed, they slept and dressed, but these were hours short of sleep because they often woke up to the sounds of shelling and groans of the Earth.

On the fourth or fifth day, the children learned to distinguish the sounds of our fighters from the enemy. The most terrible day was when a Russian plane crashed about two kilometers away, flying so low over our heads that I could clearly see the red-blue star and flash of its beacon. I covered our children with my body and at that moment, I said goodbye to life.

There was a strong explosion and the glass in the windows shook and we were knocked out by a shock wave. We were saved by the rule of two walls.

On the last night, our village was covered with hail but we could not delay further. It was very scary, since the neighbouring village was completely occupied by Russian troops. In Yagodnoye, 360 people were driven like a herd into a school basement and held captive for around 30 days. There were old people, children, and women. There was no food, only what the people had managed to take with them. They slept sitting and only the children could lie down.

Many older people could not stand it and died. Their bodies were not allowed to be taken out and buried, so the living mingled with the dead.

We were lucky as a direct road to Kyiv went near us. My husband decided to go through the forest as it was the only way to escape. I left my past life in the past without regret, because I firmly held the small warm hand of our future in my hand.

This began my long and troubled to Canada.