Living in constant fear and explosions, family in Ukraine flees the war’s frontline with hope that it will end soon

Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine – Alona Manko was displaced from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region after her hometown became close to the frontline of the ongoing war.

“We lived in our town since 2022 but forced to flee the life we once knew. My family is with me—my parents, husband and our little boy, Vladyslav, who is just one year and four months old”, Alona says.

She remembers the night the windows were blown out by the force of nearby explosions. They were sleeping when the glass shattered above their heads, raining down like deadly confetti. 

She adds, “The gas supply was cut off, and our apartment, once a place of warmth and safety, became a cold, inhospitable shell. Cooking was impossible, and so was living with any semblance of normality.”

“When the bombing became unbearable, lasting for hours on end, we would hide in the cellar, clutching each other, praying for it to stop”, she continues.

The explosions were so close, so powerful, that it felt as though everything around was being destroyed. But even as they climbed back into freezing apartment, they knew that could not stay any longer. The decision to leave was heart-wrenching.

“The gas supply was cut off, and our apartment, once a place of warmth and safety, became a cold, inhospitable shell. Cooking was impossible, and so was living with any semblance of normality.”

“We left everything behind—our home, the life we had built. We packed and waited for the right moment to escape. At four in the morning, when an explosion shook the ground, we drove away with no idea where to go or what would happen to us.” recalls Alona.

A month after they fled, Alona discovered she was pregnant. The news was a strange mix of joy and anxiety. They had just escaped the war. It was not the way she had imagined bringing a child into the world, but it was safe, and that was all that mattered. 

“We went to our relatives in Maksymivka, a village in Mykolaiv Oblast who welcomed us with open arms and helped us find a place to stay. People offered us shelter for free. Life here is different, slower, but in many ways, safer for our child”, she shares.

Alona shared that some of their neighbors, at least a thousand people did not leave their hometown, most of them elderly pensioners who cannot leave their homes. Many areas in Donetsk region, Alona shared, are still evacuating people.

Through World Vision’s project “Adaptive rapid humanitarian response to address acute needs of conflict-affected households in Ukraine” funded by Aktion Deutschland Hilft (ADH), thousands of the displaced like Alona are provided food and non-food items, reaching out to over 87,294 people.

Story and photos by Communications Officer Anna Lukianenko