Daria Razenko has lost her home twice due to the war, experienced occupation, and faced the challenges of life in a new city. Now, she is doing everything possible to ensure consistent treatment for her child, who was born with a visual impairment. Despite all the difficulties, Daria does not lose faith and dreams of a new life for herself and her family. Her story marks the beginning of a series of stories about the beneficiaries of the “Empower Ukraine. Disability rights” project, within which we provide support to people with disabilities and their families.
Daria is 29 years old. She was born in the Luhansk region. Recalling her life before the war, Daria said: “We lived well, we certainly didn’t struggle. My parents had their own house, a farm, and land plots (21 hectares of land). I got married quite early, at the age of 18, and my husband and I started living separately from my parents. We were just settling down, doing renovations in our apartment. We had many plans, dreams…”
But in 2014, when the war started, everything changed. Daria’s parents left immediately, while she and her husband stayed at home for a few more months. At that time, Daria was already pregnant, and her husband worked for a state-run funeral home. It took some time for the young couple to be ready to leave everything behind.
When the territory where Daria and her family lived was occupied, events happened so quickly that they didn’t even realize how it had all happened. Shops and pharmacies closed, the delivery of medicines and food stopped, and consequently, people had nowhere to work. Daria’s husband also lost his job. The invaders forced him to join the ‘militia’. He evaded it as best he could.
“In our small town, things became very difficult: people had nothing to eat and no water. We had to go to the well for water, where there were always separatists who behaved terribly, even arrogantly. If they didn’t like something, they would shoot people in the legs. For the occupiers, it was like a game. We tried not to go anywhere, we stayed at home. The situation got worse and worse, to the point where the occupiers, in order to somehow demonstrate their activity, caught people and forced them to confess to crimes that they themselves had committed.”
A similar situation happened to Daria when she was five months pregnant. She was locked in a room, and her husband was locked in the basement.
“We were interrogated about some strange crimes we had never even heard of. I was released sooner, perhaps because I was pregnant. To get my husband released, we had to make a lot of effort, but somehow, by a lucky chance, it happened. All this stress, exhaustion, and poor nutrition, of course, affected my health. I developed moderate anemia. After 2 days, they called us again for interrogations, they called this place ‘commandature’. With difficulty, but still, I managed to persuade my husband to run away, because I understood very well that we would not get out of there alive a second time,” – says Daria.
With nothing but their passports, Daria and her husband passed through several enemy checkpoints, covering about ten kilometers, towards the Bakhmut highway, which locals call the ‘Bakhmut road’, where a Ukrainian checkpoint was located. Exhausted Ukrainian soldiers, who were shelled daily with various types of weapons at this position, stopped a car and helped the young couple escape from the territory that was dangerous for civilians.
Then Daria and her husband arrived in Kharkiv, where they faced even more challenges: loss of documents, lack of housing, money, and repeated relocations.
Eventually, the young family managed to find a place they could call home in the city of Sumy. That’s where their daughter was born. “But it happened that due to stress, hunger, and constant anxiety, the child was born blind in one eye. Her optic nerve did not grow, did not develop,” says the woman. However, the parents did not lose heart and tried to provide systematic treatment for their child, without which the girl could lose her sight completely.
In February 2022, the war came close again. The family did not want to flee again, so at first they tried to wait it out, hoping that everything would end quickly. However, it didn’t work out. They had to move again – this time to the Ivano-Frankivsk region. New difficulties arose – lack of work, resources, housing. The young family was grasping at any opportunity to find help. There were cases when they came across false information, and they were disappointed.
“By pure chance, I read in a social media group about the organization the League of the Strong providing assistance to people who found themselves in difficult situations or had health problems. I tried, called, and they told me that they could help us, since our child has serious health problems. I collected the necessary documents and after a short period of time, the money arrived, which we really needed at that time – we were able to pay off the debt for the rented apartment. This help was not only a material resource but also moral support, as it gave us a little time to find ourselves in a new place, to orient ourselves, and to figure out how to live on,” recalls Daria.
Despite the difficulties Daria has faced due to the war, she doesn’t give up. “There are days when I feel completely down, lose faith in tomorrow, but when I look at my daughter, I truly appreciate the fact that we’re alive, that our loved ones are alive. Many of our acquaintances have died or taken their own lives, it’s painful to think about, to remember. I clearly understand that if we managed to save our lives back then, then we need to protect them now as well. It’s very important to have support in life, even a kind word from someone, it also means a lot to a person who has suffered misfortune. Sometimes, even very insignificant help, as it may seem at first glance, can bring great benefit to others.”
The woman herself tries to help others whenever she can. She understands better than anyone how important it is. As she says, “I’ll never forget how Ukrainian soldiers saved our lives in 2014. After losing everything we had worked for twice, I realized that there’s no point in hoarding or collecting things. Someone else might need them more.”
Daria dreams of getting her driver’s license and becoming a truck driver. She says this job would bring her the greatest satisfaction. “I can actually drive; my husband taught me. It comes naturally to me, and I have a good sense of the size of these vehicles. In the future, I’d like to work as a driver, maybe delivering cargo. I’d drive through villages and cities—it would bring me great joy,” Daria says with a smile.