Two years of war

Ukraine: Life on the front line remains a lottery

Civilians in the town of Avdiivka, which has been captured by Russia, are being evacuated.

(Bild: APA/AFP/National Police of Ukraine/Handout)

Care's emergency aid officer Sarah Easter spent a week talking to people in the Russian-annexed regions of Kherson, Zaporizhia and Donetsk and visited a village that had been under Russian occupation for months. The people told her that life had been "on pause", so to speak, since the Russian attack two years ago.

"The local people have the feeling of being frozen in time. There is no life, only survival," reports Easter. 3.3 million people are currently living near the front line - and thus in a permanent "exceptional situation". The association for development cooperation Care is also helping locally with psychosocial facilities to take their minds off the war, at least for a short time.

In a village that was under Russian occupation for one hundred days, a woman spent time with her husband in a cellar that was two by two meters. She had written the word "people" on the door so that they would not be shot at directly. 80 percent of the houses in the village are damaged, without roofs or windows. There is only electricity from time to time and rarely running water. Meanwhile, temperatures are dropping to minus 20 degrees. Millions of people are sitting fully clothed in their cellars or walking up and down the gardens to keep warm - if they are not mined. Otherwise, they only leave their homes for essentials such as food. Nobody knows whether they will come back from the market and whether the house will still be standing when they return. One woman told Easter that she only runs when she enters the street out of fear.

Great solidarity among the people
Meanwhile, solidarity among the people remains unbroken. You can't speak for everyone, emphasizes Easter, but many people want to continue defending their homes, so they stay put and neighbourhoods organize meals together. The Ukrainian sense of national identity remains strong, even if the war is wearing people down. However, it is not only the will to defend themselves that has led people to stay, while in other parts of Ukraine there are over four million internally displaced persons. Some are too weak, too old or too poor to flee. And some of their families are on one side of the front line and some on the other, sometimes not hearing from each other for months, not knowing their whereabouts and waiting for phone calls.

An injury on the Russian side would be tantamount to a death sentence, Easter reports on the experiences of those who survived the Russian occupation. The lack of medical care means that people bleed to death from supposedly minor injuries. On the Ukrainian side, there are mobile teams for such emergencies who know where and when help is needed.

Children keep watch at night
Care helps the national aid workers on the ground financially and with humanitarian services. Easter also emphasizes the psychological trauma caused by the war. For children in particular, there are no longer any activities in regions close to the front, and school is - if at all possible - online. She also talks about children who keep watch at night to warn family members of an attack. "First the daughter keeps watch, then the mother takes over, and for the last few hours of the night the grandmother stands at the window and listens to see how far away the explosions are. During the day, they come to the community centers, where they learn to breathe again for a few hours."

Sarah Easter is now back in Berlin. She hopes that the individuals behind the numbers are not forgotten and that other crises do not distract from how important the donations for humanitarian aid are for the people in Ukraine.