In eastern Ukraine, many single mothers and elderly women are surviving alone near the frontline of a war between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed eastern separatists that has killed an estimated 14,000 people since 2014.
The women on the front lines have lost their husbands to fighting or health problems. In this area of Ukraine, the only work men are able to find is in mining, which can lead to potentially detrimental health consequences, and possibly early death.
Many women find themselves in a similar situations to Ala Nikolaevna, 73, a blind woman living in the town of Chasiv Yar, a few kilometres from the front line.
My husband died of a heart attack and my only son has disappeared. In my family, I am now the only women left…When there is no heating, I put all my clothes on and pray. I have only one wish: that my son hugs me once again – Ala Nikolaevna
Alonya, 41, a social worker and volunteer brings Nikolaevna food three times a week. Out of the 12 people she works with on a weekly basis, 10 are women.
Since the war started, all the men joined the military or looked for work in other regions of Ukraine, and there are now mostly women living on the front line alone…The front line villages are full of single mothers and babushkas (grandmothers). – Alonya
In addition to the elderly, single mothers have also been deeply affected. Svetlana Putilina, 50, whose husband is a chaplain in the Ukrainian military, has been setting emergency plans for her family. She has been left to consider who will take the children to safety outside of the city, who will care for her elderly parents and grandparents as they journey to one of the hundreds of bomb shelters and what resistance the women will deploy.
In the government-controlled areas of Ukraine, 71 percent of heads of households are female. This share is even higher for those who are more than 60 years old, and reaches 88 percent. – Lizaveta Zhuk, a public information officer, U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Evdokia Ivanovna, 84, looks at photos of her family in an album with Lenin’s portrait on the cover. As she recalls the 54 years she has spent in her house in the front line village of Zolote, shooting from automatic weapons can be heard in the background. “All the men in my family died because they had worked in the mines and suffered the health consequences of that,” she says. “I am alone and hear shooting all the time, but I am already used to it.”
Natasha, 35, is the mother of seven children, the youngest of whom is only one year old. “When the war started, we all lived in our basement,” she says. “But it was always my dream to have a big family.” Their village, Krasnohorivka, is situated just several hundred meters from the front line. “The biggest problem is the cold. We do not have enough wood to warm our house and my children are often cold,” Natasha told Al Jazeera.
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Source: Al Jazeera