There is Svitlana that has ten years and overnight he lost contact with her mothersurgeon of Mariupol, killed along with her father by bombing. There is Irina of 15 years who lived closed in one for weeks basement, cellaralong with his nine-year-old brother and four-year-old sister: they had come to drinkurine not die of dehydration. There is Diana who is 11 years old and saw her mother dying before her eyes and warned the volunteers with a message: “Hello, Mom is gone”. There is ann who was tied to a chair watching Russian soldiers shoot her mother: “They hit her first foot, then the other, then her hands and finally her head”. They are stories of children and youth from Mariupol, collected by Vera Khwustpsychologist from irpin who since February 24 works as voluntarily with minors evacuated from the areas hardest hit by the war Ukraine. “I am a teacher and psychologist, my job in this case is to act as a filter: when these people are evacuated with the help of the organization I work for, as soon as they are safe they have a first interview with me. It is used to identify the type of them traumato then refer them to specialists, psychologists and psychiatrists who will work out the way”. In this way, Khvust spoke to Svitlana, Irina, Diana and many other children and transcribed their stories, some of which she later shared on her channel. telegram. We translated some of them:
Irina, 15 years old
When everyone started talking about the possibility of an attack, we couldn’t believe it was going to be that bad. Mom said maybe they should have installed one alarm We laughed about it around town. When they attacked us, escape immediately became impossible. We went into the basement, my mother held my sister in her arms Lyuba (four and a half years old), I held my brother in my arms Igor (nine years). Everything was shaking. We had fear move. Our neighbor was also in the basement, with her mother a lot old and her six-year-old son. One day there granny He was trying to find something to eat for his grandson, who was constantly crying. We only heard one shot. Grandma never came back. Mom wanted to go get something snow dissolve for drinking, but we felt that i Russians they were on the street and we asked them not to go or they would have killed them too. In the basement were i mice, at night they climbed on us. At some point we thought about catching them to eat, but mom forbade us. Lyuba cried a lot, but she didn’t have to, because they could have heard us. He was hungry and thirsty.
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One day someone threw one of us out the little basement window envelopethere were apples in syrup and Cookies. Mom thought they were poisoned but we decided to eat them and at that point it was the same whether we starved or died from poisoning. Maybe they had left them there Ukrainian soldiers, because the neighbors had also found a similar envelope. Igor said that St. Nicholas brought them to us. Once Mom started filtering urine through her clothes so we could drink it because the Russians were right next to us. When we left the basement, there were many corpses cats and dogs ate their remains on the street. It’s so disgusting. Another day in the basement and Ljuba wouldn’t survive. Igor wanted to go out to be killed. It was all like that frightening. Mama’s hair has turned completely white and she is only 38 years old. A friend of mine, a classmate, they have it raped and then killed. In front of his mother and little sister. I will never forgive them. I’ll do medicine, I’ll graduate, and I’ll poison them all. I wish the Russians didn’t exist, their country was deserted after what they’ve done. Now he’s thinking about it pope whoever fights against them slaughters them.
Svitlana, 10 years old
Svitlana left Ukraine with her grandmother. The mother, a surgeon, stayed in Mariupol. The network of Mobile phones it began to fail within the first days of the invasion. But as soon as she found a place, Svitlana’s mother would contact her to reassure her that everything was going well.
Vera, will mom survive?
I hope so
Not sure?
Sveta, your mother is doing what she can to hug you, but she is also doing what she can to save lives.
Won’t it survive then?
He will certainly do his best.
You’re hiding something from me.
One day, Svitlana’s mother was seriously injured in a bomb attack.
Vera, I can’t reach mom. Even in the hospital, no one answers. I can contact you, but not mom and dad.
I don’t know Sweta. Maybe they don’t have a network? What does grandma say?
Grandma doesn’t tell me anything, but I’m an adult, I need to know.
Svitlana has never heard from her mother, and neither has her father. Khvust said that psychologists are following her and that today the girl lives with her grandmother in a small house that people who have read her story have made available to her.
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Anna, 12 years old
In this case, the name is fictitious because the child’s father gave Khvust permission to spread the story, but didn’t want his name published.
How are you?
I do not know
Do you want to talk?
He took and shot Mom in the foot, then he shot the other.
what did you feel
I wanted to scream, I jumped in my chair and I fell, but they pulled me up and sat me next to Dad and told me to watch in silence or they would have shot Dad too.
did you listen to them
Yes, Mom begged me. Then they shot Mama’s hands and laughed. They made fun of us, they said we deserved it. They made mom say she was Russian. Then they shot her in the head. Dad screamed, screamed so loud. But I didn’t cry. i hated her I saw my mother ascend into heaven. I saw a rainbow.
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Diane, 11 years old
Of Diana, Khvust only shares a screenshot of a message and the previous conversation she had with the baby’s mother.
Vera, as long as there are camps, I will write to you. I feel sick. i think i’m gonna die Thank you for everything. Thanks for always keeping in touch with me who tried to get us out of here. I don’t know why this happens, but now I think it had to be that way. I’m breathing heavily and my eyes hurt. pray for us If I survive I will write to you. honor of Ukraine.
After a few hours, the volunteer’s wife assured her that she was alive. But in the evening it was little Diana who sent Khvust a message from her mother’s phone:
Mrs Vera, I’m Diana. mom died What should I do?
“We don’t know anything more about Diana. Our volunteers They wanted to pick her up at the address where she was staying with her mother, but she wasn’t there. We’ve tried to get in touch with him aunt, from which we had the number, but we couldn’t locate it either,” says Vera Khvust. We ask you where you get the strength to listen to these stories. “I always try to stay quiet, I let the boys let off steam if they want to. If they use strong, hateful words against the Russians, I will let them speak without yielding reviews or express opinions about what is happening. Then when I’m alone, I cry,” she explains. “However, at home I try to keep the stories closed in the diary, where I write them down – adds the psychologist and volunteer – I try not to think about it, almost forgetting the individual stories, all the suffering.”
The idea of sharing children’s stories came from her diary: “I have to transcribe their stories, it’s part of mine work to make statements specialists who will follow the boys after me. After listening to Irina’s story, it occurred to me that maybe it would be useful to share, to showhorror from what happened. What people lived, children on their skin”. Khvust also talks about the conditions he finds these children in when he welcomes them after fleeing: “Almost everyone suffers from it post-traumatic stress. The elderly have depressive symptoms”. And what happened to the children who left Mariupol, what was their future? “Who stays orphaned located in foster families in safer areas of Ukraine. Others have been welcomed from other countries, for example Anna and her father are in Rome,” explains Khvust, who has been in Italy since March 12.
“Our house in Irpin was complete destroyed, nothing is left. My husband, I and our two children had moved in before transcarpathiaon the border toHungary and the Slovakia. Then we decided to leave Ukraine, but I still work as an online volunteer with video calls on Zoom like I always have,” she says. Regarding the consequences of what her children have experienced, she explains: “The little one is 8 months old, I don’t know how much he has realized, I think we will see the consequences of the stress he has experienced. growth. The big one, on the other hand, is 6 years old, she’s still very scared – he concludes – The other day she heard thunder and thought they were going to bomb, she threw herself on the ground crying. IS frightened when he hears the ambulance siren and keeps saying, ‘I’m scared they’re going to kill my little brother’”.