Older people’s stories

Tatiana meets daily with other Ukrainian refugees in Moldova to practice Nordic walking together.

Mykola (64) and his wife Nataliia (65) fled the war in Ukraine and are now helping spread kindness within their displaced community.

Robina Bughio, 56, is a widow living in the village of Hadi Bux Shah in the suburbs of Shahpur Jahania, in Shaheed Benazirabad District, Sindh Province.

Muhmmad Salih (75) from Shahpur Jahania village in Shaheed Benazirabad district, is now living with his family in the open air as they couldn’t get to the shelter provided in the community school quickly enough, and it was already full. The mud-plastered home he shared with his wife and four children was completely destroyed by the heavy rains and his livestock were killed. 

Haji Noor Muhammad (70) from Shaheed Benazirabad district in Sindh Province is paralysed down the right side of his body so when heavy rains destroyed his home, he struggled to make it to a safer place.

I am from Lyadova in Vinnytsia Oblast, near the Moldovan border, but I moved to a suburb of Kyiv with my daughter, Olga (46), and granddaughter Anastasiia (15), four years ago.

I was born in 1935 in Poltava, and when I was seven, we moved to Russia. For three years, we had nothing to eat, but my mother worked at an orphanage, and she gave us water mixed with flour, and that is how we survived. It was very, very hard.

Ekaterina arrived in Moldova along with thousands of other refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. Having just crossed the border, she shares her experience.

I am a widow. I was born in this village and worked first as a nurse and then as a midwife until I retired.

I am 71. I live in a village located five kilometres from the contact line. I have been a widow for 14 years. I live alone in a small house. I have a son, a grandson, a granddaughter and two great-grandchildren, they all live in the uncontrolled territory of Ukraine.

I am a widow, I live alone. My daughter lives in another city, she visits me sometimes, to help me around the house and in the yard.