“Nightly planes are flying and bombed. All this time, the children and I are hiding, somebody in the bathroom, another one in the corridor. We live like in hell,” says single mother Yulia, who worked for twenty years in the railway administration of the Kostiantynivka city.

The district where the Loktionov family lived is often shelled, cause it’s not far from Bakhmut. Here, enemy shells mercilessly shoot people’s houses, hospitals, and schools. And even hit the humanitarian headquarters, where the affected residents of the Donetsk region came for help. All this had happened in front of the eyes of 15-year-old Diana and 10-year-old Danylo – Yulia’s children. The children simply watched as their joyful childhood was destroyed.

Back in April of last year, the mother wanted to take her son and daughter out of the shelling, but then the woman felt very ill, and later the children too. The rescue had to be postponed indefinitely. Until then, the family, exhausted by the disease, continued to live in fear and anxiety.

A week before the evacuation, a shocking event had happened that forced Yulia to urgently contact the Save Ukraine team. Then a Russian rocket exploded right in the city’s food market. Many people died. Unfortunately, Yulia’s colleague and colleague’s daughter, who had just started first grade, was among them. This was a shock for Yuliia, mother of two children: “A person with whom I worked, communicated, the person I was friends with died… This is such a pain in the heart that words cannot convey. I was in such a state that I was ready to go anywhere, only to get away from the bombings, shelling, and fear in which my children and I lived for many months.”

However, even that night, on the eve of the rescue, the Russians had been keeping the family awake and forcing them to shake with fright in the corridor from loud shelling. Fortunately, early in the morning, the Luhansk Save Ukraine team took Yulia and the children to the safer town of Kramatorsk, from where the family went to Kyiv, to our “Hope and Healing” Center. Here, volunteers have given shelter to the family and will provide them with all possible support to recover their lives.

Yulia couldn’t find the words to express her gratefulness for saving her children. The mother will finally be able to sleep peacefully.