Viktoriia
“When I hear the sound of an air raid siren, I become very tense,” says Viktoriia Karpenko.
“I struggle to breathe… In moments like these, you just cannot control your own body.”
Viktoriia speaks to us from outside her apartment block in Odesa, Ukraine. The tall white building bears a long black scar from the impact, explosion and fire caused by a drone that struck it earlier this year.
Viktoriia is a senior disaster management officer with the Ukrainian Red Cross Society (URCS). She works with the URCS emergency response teams, who can be among the first on the scene following a strike.
Her role is to make sure that physical resources – such as water, food, hygiene or quick-fix materials – make it from URCS warehouses to where they are needed. Strikes happen at all hours, meaning many sleepless nights.
When Viktoriia’s apartment block was struck, she was already in a shelter, having heard the sirens.
I could hear drones flying, and then, when the building was hit, I could feel it rock. I could hear someone scream ‘mum, mum’ – I don’t know if they were injured or scared.
Car alarms went off; dogs were barking. Viktoriia feared for her partner, and their cat, who were not in the shelter with her. After a long wait, he arrived – carrying their cat.
We acknowledge Source link for the information.
