LIFE UNDER OCCUPATION IS FEAR AND UNCERTAINTY...

You’ve recently heard about our trip into Ukraine. Here is an account of what it is really like from someone who has lived under the occupation.

“It is much worse than watching a horror movie because you can turn it off and go back to reality-here you cannot do that because it is your reality. The fear that at any moment everything can be taken away from you - your health, your honour, the life or lives of your loved ones, your home, your car, and more.

Fear of expressing your opinion and position because you and your loved ones will suffer. Fear when children are frightened and crying from explosions. When you hear the whistle of a flying shell. When all the pharmacies and hospitals are closed, and your child has a fever and you don't know what to do.

When kids want to go outside, tired of sitting in a dark and damp basement and you let them out for five minutes, shuddering at every sound. When you are cooking food over a fire because there's no electricity, no gas, no water.  The uncertainty of not knowing what will happen to you and your loved ones the next minute. When phones are cut off and you cannot reach your husband for 5 hours, who is standing in line for bread with two older sons (10 and 12 years old), because the bread is sold one loaf per person and his heart leaps out of his chest at the sound of an armoured personnel carrier passing by and machine gun fire.

When every goodbye feels like the last one.  When you don't know how long to make food last because the stores are empty and you don't know what to feed your children.  When you don't know how many more nights you'll have to spend hiding in basements, sheltering from bombs and raids by soldiers. When you don't know which of your acquaintances have gone over to the side of the occupiers.

When we were leaving the occupied area, we were very scared.  My husband was driving, I was sitting next to him and my 2-year-old son was in my arms.  We thought that if we were shot, everyone would die together.  When we passed Russian checkpoints (there was about 14 of them), we were treated rudely.  My husband and brothers were stripped down to their underpants and poked with machine guns.  When we passed the last checkpoint, the Russian military fired shells at us – thankfully we were unharmed.

On 6th June 2023, there was an explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, which led to the flooding of our city ... Many people drowned.  Mothers with children, the elderly who could not get out on the roof or open the doors, (because the frames on the doors had swollen).  The water has caused many land mines to lift and are now floating in the water.  Dead bodies of people and animals and even coffins of those recently buried are floating everywhere – there is a foul stench in the air.

Having escaped to Odessa we still experience frequent shelling and the lingering threat of a nuclear disaster at the power plant.”

We thank God and our faithful donors who provide the opportunity to help so many refugees from our base in Moldova.

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