In Ukraine, eight million mothers and children have fled the country, or one in five Ukrainians. Many fathers have not seen their children for almost a year. This is the case of Andrei, he lives in Mykolaiv, a city shelled for months by the Russian army.
“You did your homework ?”, Andrei asks on his phone. “Yes”, answers his son on the screen. Andrei has not seen his child for almost a year. Her son just turned 7. Their only exchanges, today, are now done via the Internet.
When the war with Russia broke out, Andrei’s son fled the country with his mother like eight million mothers and children, or one in five Ukrainians. “I couldn’t see my son start school. I haven’t seen him grow for a year. It’s a first year of life that goes by without me. It’s very difficult. It’s very hard for him too because we were cycling non-stop. We were inseparable.”
For months, the family apartment is found just in front of the front line, in Mykolaiv in the south of Ukraine, Andrei’s son lived for two months incessant bombardments before taking the road to exile. “But once safe in Slovakia, with his mum, for almost two months, when someone closed a door a bit loudly, he shouted: ‘Mum, hide, they are shooting!'”
Reunion impossible in Ukraine to date
On his phone, Andrei shows the videos of the war, just under his windows. “There, all the guns that were here in town, it was right there.” Like thousands of fathers, because of the war, Andrei now has to do without his family. In the box with gloves of his carhe keeps objects that are very precious to him. “That’s a little teddy bear waiting for my son to come home. And here are some pictures of my little one. I always keep them with me.”
/2023/02/19/63f255e40e2cb_pere-1.jpg)
Today, what is even more difficult than the remoteness for Andrei is “to have to explain that it is still far too dangerous to come back” to his wife and son. “It even happens that we argue about it with my wife, sighs the father of the family. After a while, she forgot what it was like to live under bombardment. She wants to come back. My son is saving in his little piggy bank for a return ticket. He needs 100 euros.”
Faced with the ever-present war, Andrei does not know when he will be able to see his family again. “It’s not safe here and it won’t be anytime soon, unfortunately.loose Andrei, his eyes misty. But the hardest part is watching my child get used to living without me.”
War in Ukraine: “The hardest thing is seeing my child get used to living without me” – report by Maurine Mercier
listen