3-year-old Maksim and 5-year-old Anastasia (the names were changed for safety reasons) crossed the border with their mother last Saturday.
Now, they are on the territory of free Ukraine.
The village in the Kherson region where the family lived after the start of the full-scale invasion quickly became occupied.
In addition to the constant stress of the war, the mother and children were subjected to domestic violence by their father. The man abused alcohol. To save the children, the woman packed her things a few months ago and fled the house with the kids.
The family was given shelter by relatives in Crimea. As it turned out, it was not for long. One day, the mother and her two children were confronted with the fact that they had two days to leave the apartment.
Specialists of the Ukrainian Child Rights Network and Helping to Leave helped the family to leave the occupied Crimea in an emergency.
Now the family is starting a completely new life in free Ukraine.
The return is part of Bring Kids Back UA.
The Way Home is a project aimed at finding and returning children displaced to Russia or non-government-controlled areas of Ukraine, as well as reuniting families whose children were without parents during the occupation. The Ukrainian Child Rights Network implements the project in partnership with Save the Children in Ukraine.
Our other partners are the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine, the Office of the Ombudsman of Ukraine, the EDUKIDS Charitable Foundation, and the Media Initiative for Human Rights.