Donetsk: Lives transformed by the hostilities

It was after midnight when the ceiling came down. A drone strike collapsed part of Daniil's home, pinning his leg beneath the rubble. His parents freed him, and in the chaos that followed the family, Daniil, his parents, his twin sister, his grandmother made the decision to leave at first light.

Before they fled, Daniil's mother ran upstairs one last time, not for valuables but for clean clothes. "We couldn't go out in dirty clothes," she says, holding on to a small piece of dignity in the middle of catastrophe. Daniil's father then pushed him in a wheelbarrow for four kilometres through a city reduced to rubble, navigating around mines scattered along the road, until they reached medical help.

The family was separated during evacuation. Daniil’s mother accompanied him to hospital while the rest of the family ended up in different temporary accommodation. "I thought I would lose my mind until we were all together again," his mother says. "We've lost everything," she adds quietly. "We'll have to start from scratch. But the most important thing is that we're alive and together."

Support from the ICRC and its operational partner has played a role in Daniil’s recovery, forming part of a larger initiative to help people displaced by the conflict rebuild not just their physical health, but also their sense of purpose.

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