In Oksana’s children’s room, a huge stuffed animal, a basketball and two empty beds. Together, the family lived the nights filled with the howls of the sirens, sheltered in a small corridor. Then there was that missile launch. “When there was this explosion next door, we decided to make them leave”, she explains.
>> War in Ukraine: follow the evolution of the situation
Two days later, Roman and Dacha leave Dnipro, their town in eastern Ukraine. The 11-year-old boy and his 17-year-old sister board a train, without their parents. “We made them leave alone because we have our job here to support the economy. We have our parents who are elderly and my husband can be mobilized and cannot leave the country”.
War in Ukraine: the testimony of a mother who sent her children to France, at the microphone of Jérôme Jadot and Eric Audra
to listen
The two children arrived in Guéret on Thursday March 17, after four days of travel. The children are staying with the family of a former Dacha correspondent. Oksana calls her daughter: “Hi Dasha, how are you?”. The eldest replies that “everything is fine” for her and her little brother even if Roman “worried about the separation”.
The young boy tries to deceive: “It’s going great”. Then, he admits that the distance weighs on him. “I’m doing pretty well, but I miss my parents a lot. I’m bored… But we can walk with the dogs, talk with the parents who welcome us”, he says, before letting go very moved: “It’s hard to leave your parents for the first time.”
Roman and Dacha are welcomed by Cécile and her husband. Games console, basketball game, soon to enroll in college… the couple do everything to put them at ease and to appease their mother. “She is very worried about whether her children are doing well. Above all, we want to reassure her that her children are indeed safe.”
We will take care of them like our own children, but they will remain her children. Not ours.
Cécile, host familyfranceinfo
Oksana communicates with her children through Telegram messaging. She is relieved to know her children are 3000 kilometers away from the bombs. But it is still painful to be separated from them. “It’s hard not to see them. I raised them to be independent but now they are very far away…And nobody knows when they will be able to come back. I don’t know what to do”, she confides in tears.
If the situation degenerates in Dnipro, Oksana and her husband will also leave their city. Their suitcase is already packed.