Viktoria Bosenko, mother:

‘A doctor from the ambulance picked up the phone: ‘Your child was blown up by an explosion.’

The child was normal, able-bodied, everything was fine, but now he is disabled. I cannot believe it.

It happened on 3 October 2014. They went out for a walk to the crushed stone plant. We have a crushed stone plant, a quarry where crushed stone used to be mined earlier. They found a shell there, and it exploded.

Boys who earlier left the place, came back then. Their parents took them out during the shelling and then they returned – right on the 1 of October as the school year began at our place. Friends gathered in a group and went out for a walk. I was at home and it was six o’clock in the evening.

I called my son on the phone, but a doctor from the ambulance picked up the phone instead. They were taken to the hospital then. He said: ‘Your child was blown up by an explosion.’

My husband was at work. I began to call him. He came quickly and we went to the hospital in Khartsyzsk. This is scary indeed. I could not believe that this could happen. Before that, they played in the yard, sat on merry-go-rounds, everything was fine. I was just standing near the window and looking at him, and then they went for a walk...

There were seven boys in total. One boy threw that shell the first time and it did not explode. And the second time it did not explode either. When he threw it the third time, a blast happened. Two boys were killed and others were wounded. Another boy who was there was not injured, one might say. He got just an elbow injury. He began to call an ambulance.

Andriy Bosenko:

‘A doctor from the ambulance picked up the phone: ‘Your child was blown up by an explosion.’

I was concussed. A bomb blast. I remember that the boys began to leave and I remained lying together with Denys.

Viktoria Bosenko:

Andriy suffered the most. Denys Penkov had his leg wounded. They [doctors] saved his leg. One boy had his spleen cut out, the other one had a wound in the liver. Andriy had a craniocerebral injury. A shell fragment touched the bridge of the nose, pierced the eye and stuck in the brain.

This shell fragment remained there. The doctors did not touch it. They said it was better not to get in there because the brain is such a part of the body that, if touched, he could either be fully paralyzed or could lose his speaking ability. It is better not to get in there, they said. It will get encapsulated and will not disturb him.

They made my son craniotomy. All the operations were made in Makiivka. His eye was removed there too. Now he has a prosthesis instead. His left eye is a prosthesis.

‘A doctor from the ambulance picked up the phone: ‘Your child was blown up by an explosion.’

His brain works fine. He studies individually, at home. Teachers praise him that he remembers everything, knows everything perfectly. Doctors say that everything is supposed to get restored, but not at once. Gradually, little by little, everything should be restored..

‘A doctor from the ambulance picked up the phone: ‘Your child was blown up by an explosion.’

What do all people dream about? They dream about peace, so that there are no wars, so that civilian people and, most importantly, children do not suffer.