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Photos: On the front lines of Ukraine, women endure war alone | Gallery News

Between the war between the Ukrainian forces and the Russian separatists who have killed nearly 14,000 people since 2014, many vulnerable or elderly women have lost their husbands due to war and health problems and survived near the front line alone.

“My husband died of a heart attack and my only son was missing. In my family, I am now the only one left, “said Ala Nikolaevna, 73, a blind woman living in the Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar, a few miles from the front.

She weeps in remembrance of the last moment she hugged her son Oleg, who disappeared shortly after joining the army in 2014.

Nikolaevna, who is blind to diabetes, now lives alone in her three-room apartment. The symptoms of diabetes are worsening and her health is deteriorating because the temperature does not always work in the war zone and she does not have regular drinking water.

“When there is no heater, I put on all my clothes and pray. I only wish one more: that my baby would hug me again, ”she says.

Alyona, 41, a social worker and volunteer, delivers Nikolaevna food three times a week.

“Of the 12 people I work with, 10 are women,” Alyona, who did not want to give her last name because of her work ethic, told Al Jazeera.

“Since the beginning of the war, all men have joined the military or have sought employment in other parts of Ukraine, and now there are more women in the queue.”

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OHCA)pdf), 1.6 million of the 2.9 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in eastern Ukraine are women.

“In this region, the only occupation a man can have is mining; as a result, many men suffer from poor health and die young, ”Alyona added.

“The future villages are full of unmarried women and babbushas (grandmothers).”

Lizaveta Zhuk, chief news officer at OCHA Ukraine, told Al Jazeera: “In Ukraine, 71 percent of the heads of families are women and women. This is the highest rate for those over 60, with 88 percent ”.

Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council NGO working for the future, told Al Jazeera that the elderly, with many women in eastern Ukraine, are very different from other organizations in which the NGO operates.

“You can’t have a war in a place full of old, cold or insecure people, who are struggling to survive after eight years of fighting,” he said.




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