{"id":138586,"date":"2022-04-07T15:21:05","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T13:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=138586"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:14","slug":"after-three-weeks-of-war-and-four-days-fleeing-the-country-daria-was-back-in-lectures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2022\/04\/07\/after-three-weeks-of-war-and-four-days-fleeing-the-country-daria-was-back-in-lectures\/","title":{"rendered":"After three weeks of war and four days fleeing the country, Daria was back in lectures"},"content":{"rendered":"

It still feels unreal. EUR student Daria Dubenko was with her parents in southeast Ukraine when the war broke out. During those weeks, she tried to keep as busy as possible. \u201cYou can\u2019t sit and wait till they come and kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Daria waits with her dog at the Polish-Ukrainian border until they are allowed to continue. She has been travelling for one and a half days now.<\/span><\/p>

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\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d Daria ducks down and her eyes widen. It\u2019s 12.00, the first Monday of the month. The air raid siren is being tested. This is the 21-year-old \u2019s fourth year studying in the Netherlands, so she should remember. But it\u2019s the first time that she\u2019s heard the siren since fleeing from Ukraine. Daria immediately calls her mother, who is now staying in a hotel in Rotterdam, to explain. This siren brings back a lot of memories.<\/p>\n

The first (and not the last) air raid siren<\/h2>
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23 to 24 February is the last night Daria sleeps in her Ukrainian bed. For three weeks she sleeps here in the hallway.<\/span><\/p>

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The first time that Daria heard the air raid siren in Ukraine was on 22 February. She can remember the moment exactly. It was tested two days before the war started. She should have been back in the Netherlands already. After six months of studying in Newcastle, at the end of January she flew to her parents in Zaporizhzhya, around 230 kilometres from Mariupol. On the way, she got Covid. She and her parents subsequently spent three weeks inside. On 25 February she was going to fly back to the Netherlands, at least that was the plan.<\/p>\n

At 5.30 on 24 February, Daria\u2019s mother woke her up. She could hear explosions in the distance. The war had started. This was the last time that Daria slept in her bed. Fearing a night-time bombing, she and her parents spent the next few weeks sleeping in the hall, the safest place in the house. \u201cIt was the last night in a long time that I\u2019d slept anyway,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I wake up in a panic, I freeze; I\u2019ve had that for a while. So I kept watch during the night and slept a bit during the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three weeks in the war<\/h2>

Packing emergency bags, buying from stores, calling family to check on them, charging powerbanks, filling everything possible with water \u2013 yes, even the bath. During the first two days of the war, Daria mainly thought in practical terms. \u201cYou need to do something, to calm yourself down. You can\u2019t sit and wait till they come and kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Daria and her parents are afraid that soon they will have no water. As a precaution, they even fill up the bathtub.<\/span><\/p>

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This is the start of what Daria describes as \u2018the worst days\u2019. The days when you sit indoors and wait for news. In the second week, the family suddenly heard a noise. \u201cIt must be tanks. But from which side? My father went to look. He wouldn\u2019t let me go with him. He saw the tracks of tanks that had driven through the centre.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family guessed that they were Ukrainian soldiers on their way to the dam of the hydroelectric power plant. They also thought that the military aircraft that later flew over the house were Ukrainian too. \u201cNo bombs fell, and we were still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her mother certainly felt the stress and panic of the situation. Daria tried to make jokes and lighten the mood. \u201cNot about the war itself, but about her behaviour. Or about how my father ran to the window when the aircraft was over our heads. My mother crawled towards me. I was holding the dog and she bent over us. It really wasn\u2019t funny; in fact it was very scary. But a joke makes things easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

In action<\/h2>

One day, Daria\u2019s father gives her 30 euros to buy food that they could donate. On social media, she posted how much that can buy in Ukraine. She received lots of reactions from friends and people transferred money to her to help refugees. In total, Daria raised 2500 euros. Via Instagram, she continued posting what she bought and how she brought it to the refugees. \u201cMy old secondary school was sheltering people from Mariupol. On the first days that I did shopping, I spent five hours walking there and back. Until a friend came to help with a car.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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Een lijst van afbeeldingen<\/h2>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t
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