Yevheniya Kosenok from Melitopol
Join Us We Need Your Help
Hello! We are a family from the occupied town of Melitopol. This is my son Hlib, he is 7 years old. My name is Yevheniya, I am 40 years old. On February 24, we woke up in our house in Melitopol to explosions. In the afternoon, russian troops were already in our town, the town was already occupied. There were city battles for several days, we heard explosions and shots. We were forced to move from our apartment to our parent’s house because our apartment was in an active war zone. We hid with our parents and looked for food and medicine, everything was broken and looted. We lived under occupation for a month and decided to leave. We moved to Zaporizhzhya. We drove 120 km of this route for 2 days, as the russians did not want to let us pass at the checkpoint. We had to spend the night in a field under shelling and explosions. It was April 1, it was very cold. The child was sleeping in the car, there was no food or water. We stood in a line of cars, there were about 1000 of them, but the russians didn’t let anyone pass. The next morning, everyone started calling the government hotlines for help. Our authorities agreed on a green corridor, but we were still not allowed through. When, closer to the evening, the occupiers started to let us through, then they opened mortar fire at us. It was the scariest moment of the war because they were shooting at our cars. One of the cars was hit, and the car caught fire. Along the road we were driving, a field was burning and very powerful explosions could be heard. It was the worst. We lived in Zaporizhzhya for a month, there we came under rocket fire with our child. Rockets were flying right over our heads. After that, we left for Vinnytsia. We ran out of money and had no work. We moved to the Kyiv region, we rent an old apartment with wooden windows, it is very cold here. We are constantly sick. We need funds for room heating, medicine, and food. Winter will be cold. With the war, my husband and I lost our permanent jobs. We have lost everything and cannot return home now. We believe in the victory of Ukraine and our armed forces of Ukraine. We hope that we will be able to return to Ukrainian Melitopol. Thank you for your attention.