Wika, 10 years old, lives in a frontline village

»I was born in this village and still live here. Now, I attend the school in Opytne like the other children. The war is bad and we will always remember it. Even when it is over, one will think about it.
There are shootings in daily life and it's not allowed to walk around outside a lot or to go further away from home.
We try to stay in the centre of the village all the time.
If we go further, we call home. For me, it's no longer real freedom.
But I'm trying to be happy and content with my present life. We have friends who visit us in the village and we are playing all the time.
Diana, my friend, comes by to play once a week. My friend Ania doesn't leave of the house that often, because she spends a lot of time with her little sister at home. Most of the time I am at home and spend my time there.
I'm missing my grandmother very much, who died two years ago. When the war began, she became ill. She had three infarctions and became so weak that she could not live any longer. I'm afraid that rockets will hit our village, because they are shooting all the time. Yesterday, for example, as fields burned next to the village, we heard the blast of mines.
I also keep a diary and express my hopes that the war will stop, write down what happened at school and how we spend the summer. Sometimes, my friends note something down in my diary, too. I wish that the war was over and that everything will once more be like it was before the war.
I like radio and TV because I talked already to a reporter myself. On the one hand, I think that the journalists should tell the truth, but then on the TV they say that the shooting was always started by DNR but that is not true. There are also shootings by the Ukranian army and both sides are always blaming each other.«

<<    >>