"The most difficult thing was to see the state of people from Mariupol." An interview with a psychologist who herself survived the occupation

In the end, Anna and her family managed to leave and also took out a 6-year-old boy whose parents died in Mariupol. Now she is in Dnipro in the "Centre for Helping the Rescued "m working with people who also survived the occupation.

Anna shared her story with Socialportal.

What did you do in Berdyansk before the full-scale invasion and how did this work change after?

Before the full-scale invasion in Berdyansk, I was the head of the NGO "Woman of the Future".

Before the war, we were active in human rights and advocacy work, focusing on combating violence against women, including domestic violence.

Our projects focused on supporting abused women and girls and promoting changes in society to teach it not to tolerate any form of violence. We organised various campaigns, cooperated with the government and police, conducted trainings and other activities to shape public opinion.

We also established a system of response to cases of violence so that victims are protected and can receive the necessary services from the government and community organisations.

At the beginning of 2022, we reached a level where we were able to unite the communities of Berdyansk district to open a shelter for victims of domestic violence. This shelter was planned to be opened in Primorsk with funding from the UN Population Fund.

The local communities agreed to run the shelter as there were already similar facilities in Berdyansk and Zaporozhye, but the region needed a safe place for women. We had arrangements with the police to transport victims to the shelter.

Before the invasion, we were also going to open the Green Theatre, an open-air theatre for locals and guests of our resort town. In this space, we planned to discuss topical topics, invite experts and shape public opinion on countering violence.

In addition, we had a strong creative component. We made films (details can be found on our website Theatre Against Violence) and developed a creative direction in the field of violence prevention.

But how has our work changed now? Not very much really.

I continue to work in the field of anti-violence, but not in Berdyansk and not with my previous team, but in Dnipro with a team of like-minded people. Important work is also being done here. I work as a coordinator at the Rescue Centre, where we respond to the challenges of war and provide assistance to victims of war and violence, including local residents and displaced people.

My current team is the Martin Club, who have been in the field for over twenty years and have developed many services to respond to incidents of violence.

About my former team, Woman of the Future, it is now scattered all over the world. Most of the team members, including the head of the organisation and board members, are abroad. Perhaps I am the only team member left in Ukraine.

How did you manage to work when the occupants occupied the city?

It was very difficult to continue working after the occupation. The occupation came very quickly - literally on the third day after the full-scale invasion.

The Russian military occupied all the administrative buildings, the city was paralysed, people were not allowed out of the city or into it.

In the first week of the war, people were focused on gathering the things they needed to survive - food, household goods. All the shops were emptied. After a week, my team and I decided to keep going because our clients who were survivors of domestic violence needed help. They were without food, nappies, medication and didn't know where to turn.

We were forced to find ways to provide for their needs. This was especially difficult because no additional supplies were being sent to the city and people were not being released. Everything depended on personal connections.

The police stopped their work as their building was immediately taken over.

Police officers went into hiding to avoid being captured.

Although the 102 hotline continued to work, the police could not respond to all the violence as they did before the occupation. We approached policemen we knew to respond to violence in families, so that people would not suffer at least in such a difficult moment.

Later, a humanitarian headquarters was opened in the city, created together with our team, which helped us in our further work.

The authorities, volunteers and ordinary people approached the humanitarian headquarters with their requests and fears. We created a psychological support service, where 14 psychologists worked. Fortunately, the occupants did not interfere with the work of the headquarters and did not prohibit us from helping people. They only came a few times with machine guns, checked volunteers and visitors, but did not interfere with the work.

However, the work was complicated by the lack of communication. So we organised volunteers on bicycles who could pass on information and maintain communication.

I ran psychological first aid courses in conjunction with the Red Cross for residents. We continued to look for ways to get goods into the city so that we could distribute them to people.

Sometime in mid-March 2022, the first people from Mariupol found a way to leave the city.

Despite official claims that there were "green corridors," there really weren't any, and this was a kind of breakthrough on the part of the people. By evening, tens of thousands of refugees from Mariupol had arrived in our city in a terrible state.

We tried to resettle them by converting our premises and any available places - beauty parlours, offices, churches - so that people could have somewhere to stay overnight. We were looking for something to feed them, something to clothe them. We worked like that as long as we had a connection. I was also on a hotline with the people of Mariupol who were suffering from bombing and active fighting.

Our town is only 70 kilometres from Mariupol, so all this horror could be heard. When communication completely disappeared, it was very scary.

What horrors were happening there? We worked in a particularly active mode with people from Mariupol until the end of March. I provided counselling and distributed humanitarian aid. We were even able to go to Melitopol, where there were some food supplies and where we could buy something. We brought and sorted the food and then distributed it. Every day we served between 500 and 700 people.

At the end of March, I was approached to take a six-year-old child from Mariupol and help him get to the unoccupied territory.

The child had a chronic illness and his parents had died at the end of February.

He was with strangers who were no longer able to take care of him. I agreed and began actively looking for ways to leave.

It was possible to leave only by my own car, because no evacuations were organised for Mariupol. Buses came and stopped outside the city. People reached them on foot, and the queues were several thousand people. But it was more difficult for residents of Berdyansk who did not have their own car to leave.

In mid-April, I was able to leave and take my child and my friends to the controlled territory.

We came to Zaporozhye and from there we moved to Dnipro. That was my experience during the occupation.

In one of your interviews you said that the hardest thing was to see the condition of people from Mariupol..

Yes, the hardest thing was to see the very condition of people from Mariupol. One of such cases was the story of a woman whom I helped on the phone. She was suffering from a blood disease and could not get the medicine she needed because of the hostilities. She had about 12 people gathered at her home - children and elderly relatives. She had to take care of them, even though it was very difficult for her. She was literally fading away due to lack of medicine and I was supposedly a helpless witness to this.

But despite all the difficulties, they managed to get out of Mariupol. They got out on foot.

I received a message from her a month after communication was lost. She reported that they were alive, in safe territory and receiving the necessary assistance.

Another story concerns a family who tried to get through a roadblock. A man, a woman and their two children drove up to the roadblocks on the way out of Mariupol. They were given only 40 seconds to leave in time, otherwise they promised to open fire. Unfortunately, this happened and all the family members were wounded. But despite this, they managed to get to Berdyansk.

Here is another story of a female worker from Metinvest. I met her when we were helping people to get to the places where the evacuation buses were. Our organisation had a car, so we gave rides to those who could not walk several kilometres.

This woman was wearing a work suit and had to lean on two crowbars to get away. It took her a long time to get away, but she walked to the evacuation buses every day.

She was in serious condition, refused medical attention and persevered every day to get to the bus. We were able to convince her to see a doctor because her legs were seriously injured, she could have just lost them.

Many vehicles travelling out of Mariupol were shot at. I remember one minibus - without a roof, with broken windows and windscreen. It had "Children" written on it in capital letters. But that, unfortunately, didn't stop anyone.

Were there any victims of sexual violence among those you worked with in the occupation?

Most of the people I worked with did not talk about what happened to them. People were extremely exhausted, frightened, many were injured, and their basic needs were unmet. My main job was to try to stabilise them, to help them get out of shock.

It was not uncommon for them to receive news of dead or injured relatives or destroyed homes while they were working with them. There was simply no time to discuss cases such as sexual violence. In addition, people who have been victims of sexual violence are usually not able to talk about it immediately.

I realise that my clients are likely to have been victims of sexual violence, but they have not come to me.

How did your work change after you were evacuated to Dnipro?

When I arrived in Dnipro, my main work during the first week was to organise help for a child from Mariupol and my friends' family. We found a foster family for the child, provided the necessary medical care. All this was possible thanks to the support of my friends and the Martin Club organisation.

After that I was offered a job in a mobile brigade where I worked together with police officers on domestic violence calls. I later moved to the Rescue Support Centre where I worked in long-term counselling for survivors of violence.

Often survivors of violence don't want to talk about their horrific experiences right away. They need time to feel safe. Rarely do people recall their experiences in the first session, most people talk about the violence in the second or third session.

Cases of sexual violence are even less frequently mentioned. Sometimes it takes seven or eight counselling sessions before a person decides to talk about their horrific experience. But those who do open up and talk about their experiences can really get help. Some of them continue to receive support from our centre for a long time.