Ania

Ania was 11 when she painted this picture. She was only 10 when russian troops occupied Kherson. She and her family took shelter in her grandmother's house in the village of Antonivka.

Ania remembers that before the occupation she had planted strawberries in a pot on the windowsill. Then the city filled with “monsters”: that is how she described the way russian soldiers forced their way into the city.

The window behind the strawberry plant was now taped over with black plastic sheeting to protect against flying glass: explosions had become part of everyday life.

In autumn 2022 the occupiers sent Ania to what was supposedly a two-week holiday camp. Instead she spent ten weeks in a camp called “Friendship”, followed by another ten weeks in the camp “Sunbeam”.

The children lived there in a prison-like secure facility. They were forced to sing the russian national anthem, shouted at again and again and physically abused. Anyone classed as “disobedient” was put in an isolation room.

After months of tireless efforts by her family, supported by an aid organisation, Ania was finally brought back to Kherson.

She returned only shortly before the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, when the floodwaters swept away homes, belongings and places that had been part of her childhood.