Ukrainian family returns home to destroyed village
After months of Russian occupation, the village of Myrne in southern Ukraine is in ruins. But a few families have returned home, determined to rebuild.
Among them is the Strelchuk family, who fled the village with their two young grandchildren after their parents were killed in the fighting.
"The children wanted to come home, so we came back," said Nadejda Strelchuk. "But everything is destroyed. The bicycles are burned, they are crying. We had a white puppy, he disappeared, now another one is lost. Let's go and see! These are our windows, furniture, walls, everything that was at home, the fridge, the TV. This was our house. This is all that's left of it."
Of the village's nearly 2,000 residents, only a few dozen have returned. And there is little left for them to return to.
"This is where my grandfather sleeps," Nadejda Strelchuk said. "We put a fridge and a table here, which kind people gave us. So here we are in the barn, with the rats and mice. We covered the ceiling with a sheet so it wouldn't fall on our heads. This is how we live, what can we do?"
Aleksander and Nadejda, along with their two grandchildren, Dima and Yuliya, are determined to stay in Myrne. They cannot leave their mother, who is buried in the village cemetery.
"There was a mattress, bicycles," Dima said. "That's my sister's, it was brand new, my grandmother's, and mine is right at the end. This is my house, here's the window. I put on the slate. The beams are at the bottom. We lived in Kherson, there's a school there, but now it's dangerous there, so we're studying remotely."
Dima visits his mother's grave often, carefully and at risk, because the gardens, fields, and cemetery in Myrne are all mined.
"This is my mother," he said. "She died in 2019, when I was four years old. I found a splinter, maybe it flew off somehow or came off something. I don't know. And look, a shell hit my mother right in the heart."
