Viktoria Christianko can even smile a little again. Her daughter Sonya is playing in a sea of cuddly toys that volunteers have piled up in a handball goal. Together with her one-year-old daughter Sonya and her four-year-old son Daniel, Viktoria Christianko has temporarily moved into two of the 80 Caritas beds in the gymnasium of Elementary School No. 6 in Przemyśl. They pushed them together to form a double bed. Sonya, meanwhile, is sleeping more soundly.
In Mykolaiv they heard the rockets. The air alarm sounded daily. When they went to get food, it hissed in the sky. They threw themselves on the ground, not knowing where the rocket would hit. They spent the first days of the war in a bomb shelter. Then a bridge near their house was destroyed. Viktoria Christianko shows the pictures on her cell phone. She was trying to get her children to safety. Her husband Sergey stayed behind. They spent over twenty hours crowded together on a train to Lviv. About 1000 people, Viktoria tells, are said to have been on the train. They slept, sat and lay everywhere. One could hardly move. In Przemyśl she found accommodation through Caritas volunteers. The children found some distraction. She does not want to go too far away from the Ukrainian border and from her husband Sergey.
Philipp Spalek for Caritas