We left everything and went nowhere. Like millions of migrants, we have been fighting for three years for the right to live in human conditions.

We escaped from Donetsk in the summer of 2014, when our village of Trudovske was shelled around the clock. The windows flew out completely, the walls fell away. It was impossible to live there with children.

I am a single mom with several children. With three children, we now live in Volnovakha; we rent a two-room house. Our living conditions are like ones in the field. We carry water through three houses, wash with my hands, the toilet is outside, there is no gas, no firewood.

After I divorced from my husband, I have two breadwinners in my family: my youngest son 10-year-old Vlad and the eldest son Igor. They go to the forest for firewood. And it is dangerous, there may be stretch mines. But they know that I have no money for coal. With a salary of 800 hryvnias, it happens that I do not have anything even to buy bread. We receive social benefits with a delay. 

We dream of returning to Donetsk, but so far this is impossible. Driving across the contact line is like crossing the state border. And permission is required from the ex-husband to take the children across the border.