‘One shell landed in our house and wounded our daughter’

Mother, Oksana Kompaniyets:

It touched my daughter’s head. Her head was badly wounded. It hit the house, and at that moment Nastia was going out of the bathroom. So, the bricks, and all of that fell out and flew onto my child.

Nastia Kompaniyets:

And on the grandmother too.

Father, Roman Kompaniyets:

There was red dust and nothing could be seen. I was looking for them just by touch.

Mother:

It happened on 10 February 2015. There was a shelling in Hrodivka and 43 houses were damaged. And so, one of the shells flew into our house. Well, the clusters/dispensers were scattered on the way and the very base flew to us.

At that moment, we all were at home. It was quarter to seven in the evening. We accommodated some relatives from Debaltseve, two grandmothers. It was a usual evening, everyone was relaxed, in nighties, because it was the evening and we were going to sleep. And then the shelling began. Nastia and the grandmother were in the bathroom at that time. They went out of the bathroom and at that moment the shell hit the house. The grandmother covered Nastia.

We gathered everyone and quickly took them to the cellar because it all continued. And when we got out from the cellar, we went to the hospital. It was necessary to put stitches. The child was in a state of shock. She is afraid of thunder now. She does not understand when it is the thunder and when the explosions.

Nastia:

Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes everything is fine, but after being wounded, I began to faint more often.

Mother:

The Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center phoned us last year, but we could not go then. The child could not yet recover from all this. And this year we agreed and went to the recreation/rehabilitation facility. This attention is very important for us, because besides the Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center, no one else offered us anything like that. We are very grateful.

I think all the children are very grateful because, except for Akhmetov, no one provided any help with treatment of children, with rehabilitation, no one provided anything.

Nastia:

I began to feel good, became more active, became cheerful. I want everything to be fine and that there is no war.

Mother:

Now she is more or less fine, she is recovering, and everything seems to be fine. We think, everything will be restored with time. We will live as before, if only the war ends.