1000 days of war. Sister Olexia (Kharkiv), the “face” of the elderly and children. “We hope to see a just peace”
“Kharkiv used to be a beautiful city, bustling with young people. About two months had passed since Russia’s full-scale invasion when I arrived there in May. What I found was a city destroyed by bombs. There was nobody in the streets. It was a shock. It was perhaps the worst moment.” It is with this memory that Sister Olexia Pohranychna, a nun of the Congregation of the Greek Catholic Sisters of St Joseph, starts recounting her story. SIR asked her to share her testimony to gain an insight into the reality of 1,000 days of war in a city on the eastern border of Ukraine, just a few kilometres from Russia, almost on the “front line” of the conflict.
“The elderly are fleeing their villages, leaving their past, their lives, everything behind forever. This is a painful facet of war-torn Ukraine.” The houses they used to live in are now reduced to piles of rubble. ‘We don’t even have a place to die anymore’, is the one sentence that unites them all. Alongside the displaced elderly are the faces of children. The war has hit them hardest of all, robbing them of their present forever. Schools in Kharkiv remain closed because of the constant bombing. Unfortunately, classes are still being held online, but “we don’t know what the children are doing behind the screens of computers and mobile phones.” Some leave the room, some get up, some may stay in bed and sleep. The teacher has no way of knowing what is really going on. The days go by and the lessons continue in this way. Apart from the ‘poor quality’ of their studies, the fact that they cannot go to school has deprived these children of their only chance to socialise with their peers.
There are no safe places in Kharkiv. Even playgrounds and sports facilities can be dangerous, even deadly, for children.
Some of the children died while playing outside with their friends. The Church soon learned about this situation and immediately knew that something had to be done for them. Every Wednesday and Sunday, the Greek Catholic parish in Kharkiv opens its doors to the children. The initiative is much appreciated. Many children come to church, and the parish hall comes alive with games, dancing, singing and drawing. “The children run around, shout, express all their eagerness to play together, to be heard, to find someone who will tell them how good they are,” says Olexia. “I remember one child who used to draw, but only in the colours black and brown. The war had taken all the light out of him. As time went on, we noticed a change and he started using brighter colours, even though the war is still terrifying”. The nun continues:
“We go to sleep every night hoping that no remote-controlled bombs or missiles will hit our house. And even if they don’t, we know that someone has died when the sirens go off in the middle of the night, every night.”
Unexpected memories of joy and gratitude have also emerged from the past 1,000 days of war. “I remember when we were delivering aids in a village. One woman came up to us and thanked us with a bow. I was touched. We had done nothing extraordinary, but these people were waiting for us. They told us, ‘Don’t bring us anything, just come and visit us.’” Sister Olexia speaks fluent Italian. Journalists have contacted her, as have volunteers who have travelled from Italy to offer assistance to the local population. Olexia is thinking in particular of the Como-based charity ‘Frontiera di Pace’, which enabled the nun to bring a group of children to spend the summer in Italy.
“My hope,” she concludes, “is that this end will end soon and that it will end with a just peace, not as Putin says. We, the people of Ukraine, have committed no harm against Russia. They are the ones who came to destroy and bomb all of us. We all want peace. We all want to return to live in peace, to sleep in peace. We hope that soon there will be peace and that those beautiful days that God gave us will return. Nobody imagined that in the 21st century a war would start in the heart of Europe.”
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