Escaped to a safe place
Thirty-seven-year-old Malina Lapenko fled her war-torn town and settled across the front-line in a government-controlled area. She is a single mother of five and the family has been surviving on humanitarian assistance and some social benefits from the government.
“We had a big house where we lived together. My husband abandoned us, and now I’m the only breadwinner. When the war broke out, I stopped receiving child support and we could hardly get by. In 2015, we had to flee 200 kilometres to find a safe place,” she recounts. They are renting an old house in Kreminna town, in the government controlled territory.
We can only heat our home for four to five hours a day. But the warmth escapes quickly, as the house is very old, the roof is leaking and the windows are crackedNataliia Synelnyk (43)
Displaced, cold and with little food
After they had left, Lapenko’s home was damaged in an artillery attack. Now, they have nowhere to return to.
“We can hardly survive through winter. A lot of money goes to food, warm clothes, medication for the children and fuel for heating the house. We cannot afford all that!” The family’s monthly budget is no more than 120 US dollars.
Recently, Lapenko learnt that the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) provides food assistance to families affected by the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. Now, her family receives money to buy food during winter months.
“We already received the first payment. Now I feel relieved, as we have enough food to eat, and I can buy more fuel to keep my family warm during the whole winter,” she says with a smile.
Fuel for frontline communities
Nataliia Synelnyk, 43, lives with her 23-year-old son and two parents in a house in Stanytsia Luhanska, on the frontline in eastern Ukraine. She works as a cleaner and earns less than 45 US dollars a month. Her son Oleksii cannot find a job in the isolated village, where the majority of the inhabitants are older people.
“Our house doesn’t have gas or water supply. We heat it with firewood and coal, which is very costly. We can only heat our home for four to five hours a day. But the warmth escapes quickly, as the house is very old, the roof is leaking and the windows are cracked,” Synelnyk says.
Her house is one of many damaged houses in the village, and it’s in desperate need of repair. As a part of our winter assistance programme, NRC provided Synelnyk’s and other families with mineral wool, vapour barrier and foam tape for windows to insulate their houses from the cold. This winter, we provided over 340 families in the region with such help.
“Ukraine has long and severe winters. Heating remains an acute problem which is difficult to solve, especially for people affected by the conflict,” says NRC project manager Viktor Avtonomov.
The areas around the frontlines are unsafe, because of landmines and unexploded ordnance. Many people do not have money or access to fuel because of ongoing hostilities.
“We could not ignore such a desperate situation and provided families living in houses without gas supply and close to the contact line with insulation materials, solid fuel or cash,” says Avtonomov.
NRC has been supporting families in eastern Ukraine since 2014. This winter we provided 23,700 people in Luhansk region with food, warm clothes, fuel and insulation materials for their homes. This assistance was made possible because of the generous support of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the UN World Food Programme and the Vatican initiative "Pope for Ukraine".
