"Do evil men want to kill all the kids?"

Mother Rymma:

On 22 January 2015, my daughter Diana and I were in the basement. The first explosions occurred around 02:30 p.m. The basement was empty at that time. We found some boards and used them to sit. Well, later we made some beds. That is all. Well, just in case.

It was scary. We screamed and cried. We lived in the basement for a month. Many people moved out when they were given the green corridor. Well, we held on until the last minute. We and another family.

We didn't leave, because the windows were smashed, and my mother said, "I'm not going anywhere." We couldn't leave the house open. And we couldn't  leave Mum alone.

In 2015, when we lived here, we were very scared to leave the basement. It was very scary. The building my mother lived in was nearby, but I was very afraid to just go there. Diana was afraid even to go into this part of the basement.

We even kept carpets in one part of the basement to keep warm. There were times when I told my daughter, "Let's go get some fresh air." She just went outside. She heard shooting somewhere, and she said, "Mum, do evil men want to kill all the children? I went out and they started shooting." Well, what a coincidence! Once we got out of the basement, they started shooting again.

Diana:

We were playing with children. When we got into the store, our windows flew out. And we all went to the basement to wait it out. And it turned out that a shell hit the shop right near the basement. We ran to the second part of the basement.

Well, everyone was scared, confused when it fell near the basement. In a moment like this I began to realise that when the door fell down, it would tumble down on us. A friend of my mother's didn't make it to the basement before a fragment hit her in the head.

Mother:

The first shell hit the roof of the store. The windows of my mother's apartment face the store. The kitchen and bedroom windows broke down. Half a minute before these explosions, I entered the basement.

Then the second blast hit the bench I was walking past when rushing to the basement. And then the women and the girls who were on the street started running. And the friend I was just talking to just fell into the basement. We didn't immediately understand what had happened. Overall, a fragment killed her instantly.

It seemed like the house shuddered during the explosion. There is no second exit from the bomb shelter. So we couldn't run away. I grabbed Diana and ran further into the depths of the basement. I hugged her. Everything shuddered. It was terrible.

We could were shouting and crying, because there were a lot of children in the basement. And there were children younger than Diana. There were a lot of people in the basement. Everyone was shouting. They were afraid that it would cover them up.

We thought that if a shell fell, it would cover them all up. We were afraid, because it wasn't a real bomb shelter. It was a basement. We were afraid to go out.

Diana:

My mother and grandmother helped me. They tried to cheer me up as best as they could. But deep down I knew that God saw it all and protected us.

Many people die during any war, and no one benefits from it. Children's mental health deteriorates because of that. Children would be able to communicate normally only if peace comes. They are too young to witness so much grief, terror, fear, and death.