Based over the border in Poland, one rights activist tells of her shock at hearing accounts of rape and murder in Ukraine
When women at the border started talking to me about rapes and murders happening inside Ukraine, I thought these were just rumours; I wouldn’t let myself believe it. I told myself that it was just people sharing scare stories or that women were just trying to rationalise their feelings of guilt about leaving their husbands and sons. Maybe my psyche was trying to defend itself.
Then a woman in her 70s, who said she was from one of the occupied areas close to Irpin and Bucha, crossed the border with her daughter and great-granddaughter. They were being treated by medical volunteers at the French mission. The daughter, who was in her 50s, had cancer and was very sick. The medics could not believe that someone like this, with a hole in her stomach and no bandages, was so desperate to leave that she would risk travelling for so many hours with no medical support.
