KOSTIANTYNIVKA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Olha Skachkova and her 11-year-old son, Denys, left their hometown of Toretsk, near the front lines where Ukrainian and Russian forces are fighting, in an armored van, joining millions of Ukrainians fleeing the war.
The conflict, which is approaching its second anniversary, has driven many to seek safety, while others have endured artillery fire and snipers and are now being evacuated.
For Skachkova, the deciding factor was her son expressing fear due to constant shelling nearby.
“My child started to feel very scared … it was frightening,” she said at a shelter in Kostiantynivka, a city in the Donetsk region, about seven km (four miles) from the front line, the first stop for many civilians fleeing the war. “So I decided to go.”
Her 69-year-old mother chose to stay behind, not wanting to be a burden.
Although Moscow denies targeting civilians, about 5 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced by Russia’s invasion according to the U.N. refugee agency. Donetsk region has been the hardest hit by the fighting.
Senior volunteer, Tetiana Scherbak, left the city of Bakhmut on Feb. 24, the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion. Since then, she has helped run a shelter with 80 spaces for internally displaced people (IDPs), seeing around 700 pass through its doors.
Families with children typically stay for a few days, while older evacuees are harder to find permanent homes for and sometimes stay for months.
“(The elderly) don’t want to go anywhere,” she said. “Many want to be near their cemetery, as they say, near their relatives. They think they will be able to return to their homes.”
For 81-year-old Maria Maliarenko, a native of the frontline town of Chasiv Yar, leaving her apartment was a tough choice, even after the windows and doors had been blown out by shelling.
Her roommate, Yulia Nikonova, was evacuated in April from Bakhmut, a city that fell to Russian forces after some of the fiercest and most deadly clashes since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The 76-year-old was struck in the hand by a sniper’s bullet and lay wounded for three days, told by Ukrainian soldiers who rescued her that she would have died had she stayed another two days.
“On the fourth and fifth floors, the walls between the apartments would fall like dominoes,” she said, recalling the horrors of fighting that reduced much of Bakhmut to rubble.
In the next-door room at the center, Skachkova and Denys were settling in, awaiting more permanent accommodation.
Denys reached out to two other boys, saying: “Let’s be friends.” The reply was affirmative.
“This is my first time out of Toretsk,” he confided in his new pals.
(Reporting by Max Hunder and Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
