Valentina Gapienko | Havronshchyna

"We were all in the house when the shell exploded. My four-year-old granddaughter almost died"

Name: "We were all in the house when the shell exploded. My four-year-old granddaughter almost died"
Uploaded: 2024-11-06 15:08:33EET
Duration: 18 min 37 s
Description: Twelve members of the Hapiienko family survived the occupation for more than a month. Valentyna's granddaughter, who was four years old, almost died during the shelling. The woman's sister managed to cover the little girl in time. The child's mother was contused then.

Twelve members of the Hapiienko family survived the occupation for more than a month. Valentyna's granddaughter, who was four years old, almost died during the shelling. The woman's sister managed to cover the little girl in time. The child's mother was contused then.

Valentyna recalls with tears how they ran out of food, how shells were flying over their house more and more often, how they were freezing from the cold.

Later, some of the family members were sheltered by their fellow villagers. Valentyna and her husband could not leave their home because they know well how it feels to lose everything and start life from scratch.

In 2014, they left Donetsk. The IDPs faced many challenges – loss of housing, jobs, serious illnesses. The family had just felt the ground under their feet when they found themselves in the midst of a full-scale war again.