Thread by @ukraine_world

Evacuation under fire: the story of a family from Bucha. 1/13 #UkraineWorldTestimony

On the 1st day of the full-scale 🇷🇺 invasion, Iryna and her husband were in shock and didn't know what to do. They had 2 children, 7 and 9 years old. In the next 2 days, they waited for a planned evacuation, but they couldn't contact the city council to clarify the details. 2/13

On the third day, electricity problems began in Bucha. Since Iryna's family had not prepared for life at war, they had to resort to using expensive perfumed candles to light the underground parking garage where they were hiding from Russian bombs and shells. 3/13

After 5 days in the cold parking lot and unsuccessful attempts to contact the city council, the family decided to try to evacuate from Bucha on their own. It was extremely risky because 🇷🇺 troops had surrounded the city as early as Feb. 25, the second day of the invasion. 4/13

Iryna and her husband learned that the authorities were organizing an evacuation from the train station in neighboring Irpin. To get there, the family had to walk across half of Bucha and almost all of Irpin. 5/13

On the way to the station, the family had to constantly throw themselves on the ground due to shelling. They had to step over the corpses of civilians killed by the Russians and carefully avoid stepping on unexploded shells. 6/13

Iryna and her husband told the children to walk quietly, without unnecessary movements and sounds, lest they draw attention to themselves. The children obeyed. 7/13

When the family arrived at the station, they were told that the bridge over the Irpin River had been blown up to stop Russian tanks on their way to Kyiv. This meant that no one could leave Irpin now. 8/13

The mayor of Irpin, Oleksandr Markushyn, promised people that he would help them get out of the city. He gathered a crowd who wanted to evacuate and led them on foot to the Novoirpinska highway. In order to escape, people had to cross the destroyed Irpin Bridge. 9/13

Iryna and her family were in the famous photographs of civilians evacuating underneath the bridge ruined by Russian airstrikes. She says that she never wanted this sort of fame. 10/13

Despite the shelling, the family was able to cross to the other side, towards Kyiv. There, everyone was put on evacuation buses, and Iryna’s family was taken to Poltava Oblast. Fortunately, she had relatives there, so the family stayed there for some time. 11/13

The family later moved to Lviv. After the de-occupation of Bucha, they came home. Luckily, their house survived, with only their windows damaged by explosions. 12/13

Even though the whole family made it through alive, Iryna couldn't return to normal life for a long time. The occupation, shelling, and death that her family was forced to live through were deeply traumatic. 13/13