In Ukraine, families seek shelter from cities shattered by shelling

In the middle of the night, three-year-old Mykyta awoke with his family to pack their belongings. Now, he sits surrounded by a dozen bags on a broken bench at the bus stop in the village of Dachne, waiting for a bus marked ‘People Evacuation’.

Today’s evacuation from Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine takes less than half an hour. This small window, just before dawn, will be the only opportunity for Mykyta and his family to leave before the first shelling begins.

"This is my brother Timur, he's five, this is my sister Faina, she's one, and this is our cat," says Mykyta, pointing to a frightened grey cat.

When the bus arrives, the cat tries to escape and Mykyta begins to cry.

"Where are you headed, boy?" asks the evacuation bus driver, kindly. "To a place where there are no strikes," sighs his mother, 23-year-old Maria.

For now, the family still do not know their final destination. All they want is to escape the explosions, which seem to get closer every night.

“My son gets very scared”

Daily evacuations like these from Pokrovsk and frontline towns in Ukraine’s Donetsk region have been taking place for several months, but in recent weeks, more and more people have been leaving. Amid the ongoing war, the front line is creeping closer to homes, and the humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating.

"The front line is moving, and evacuations come in waves,” explains Oleksandr, who works with the humanitarian organization Proliska to help during evacuations. 

“After every major shelling, more people decide to leave. We evacuate people from Kurakhove and Pokrovsk every day, and almost every day there are families with children.”

Today, Oleksandr is helping Mykyta and his family to load their belongings. He also helps to seat the children and hands out water to everyone.

"My middle son, Mykyta, gets very scared,” says Maria, rocking her little daughter in her arms. “The shelling has been getting worse recently. It always starts at the same time, after 8 a.m., and lasts until noon. Even the children have learned this schedule and run to hide.”

As if to confirm her words, loud explosions echo on the horizon. The bus speeds up on the empty road, slowing only to avoid craters left by shells.

"There hasn’t been water in the village for a long time,” adds Maria. “The supply was cut off. We were getting water from wells. The kindergarten closed. There’s no work. It was hard to buy things for the children. But the worst part is that the shelling has been increasing lately.”

The evacuation bus will take displaced families to the relatively safer city of Pavlohrad, where they can receive legal, financial and informational assistance. After registration at a humanitarian centre, families are helped to board an evacuation train to other regions of Ukraine that are accepting displaced persons from the east.

“We can always hear the artillery at night”

While 25-year-old Olena was preparing to board the evacuation bus with her five-month-old daughter Elina in Pokrovsk, a loud explosion rang out.

"It was terrifying,” says Olena, who later found out that the shelling had disrupted the gas supply in Pokrovsk, which only confirmed her family’s decision to evacuate. “I looked at Elina – she didn’t understand what had happened, but her eyes were so wide.”

Once a large industrial city, Pokrovsk is now almost deserted. Due to the shelling, there is no water supply, transportation is disrupted and explosions are frequent. Police cars drive around the shattered city, announcing the evacuation through loudspeakers. Due to the security situation, a curfew is in place from 3 p.m. until 11 a.m.

"Recently, it’s been hard to buy medicine for my child,” says Olena. “I had to order it by mail. We can always hear the artillery at night. And it’s very hard living with the curfew.”

This will be Olena’s third evacuation. She first fled from Vuhledar, which has since been destroyed by the fighting, before moving from the shelled outskirts of Pokrovsk to the city centre. Now, she is once again forced to seek safety for herself, her daughter and her mother. In Pavlohrad, the family will take the evacuation train to Dnipro.

"We want to temporarily settle in a village in the Dnipro region,” says Olena. “As for what comes next, we still don’t know.”

“I’m sad to leave home”

On that very train, seven-year-old Mykola is traveling with his parents. He is both sad and excited.

"I’m sad to leave home, but I’m going to Ternopil, where I’ll be able to go to school,” says the boy. “I really want to go to school.”

In Pokrovsk, amid the shelling, Mykola did not have the opportunity to attend school in person. Now, he dreams of making friends and sitting at a desk during lessons.

He is thrilled to receive a hygiene kit from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), one of hundreds that have so far been distributed to vulnerable children evacuated from dangerous areas. The kits contain everyday essentials, crucial to families on the move, including wet wipes, shampoo and toothpaste.

"Of course, we always hold onto hope that we’ll be able to return to Pokrovsk,” says 31-year-old Oksana, Mykola’s mother. “But everyone who’s leaving now is doing it for the sake of their children.”

UNICEF is supporting newly evacuated families with children from Kharkiv, Sumy and Donetsk regions fleeing the frontline due to the increased hostilities by providing financial support and vital hygiene kits to ease their burden at a new place. A team of psychologists from a UNICEF partner is also on hand to provide psychological support on evacuation trains.