Evacuating Hope: Human Stories of Rescuing from Danger

When our hearts ache from the news coming from the frontline regions, we must remember: people still live there. In May, several families reached out to Caritas-Spes Sloviansk with requests for evacuation — seeking a way out of the hell they were trapped in.

In early May, the local team evacuated a married couple from Kostyantynivka. They were terrified after a drone carrying an explosive hit a neighboring house, though the shell did not detonate. Their children, fearing for their parents’ lives, called Caritas-Spes Sloviansk asking for help to evacuate them to the train station in Dnipro. From there, they had already bought them train tickets to Rivne where warm hugs from their loved ones awaited them.

At the end of the month, a mother and her daughter from Rodynske, Donetsk region, contacted us. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the woman lost her job at a local school. She didn’t want to leave, believing the horror would end any day. But when living under constant shelling and the approach of enemy troops became unbearable, she finally asked for evacuation. Sometimes all it takes is the courage to take that first step in the right direction to feel God’s support: the woman quickly found both housing and even a new job in the Kharkiv region, where we helped her relocate with her belongings.

Every story is unique, every life saved is invaluable. We are deeply grateful to Caritas Paderborn e.V., whose support makes this project possible.