Melitopol arrived today, March 17.

A local teacher told us how they would hold rallies and get shot at. A young man who was protesting nearby was shot in the leg. Then the enemy soldiers asked the organizer of the rally about the «appointed mayor.» The girl answered that in Ukraine mayors aren’t appointed, we elect them. They abducted her. We’ve had had no news from her for several days now.

I asked another refugee how she got to Lviv, whether the road was difficult. She began to cry. She said that she was driving down a «green corridor» and the enemy began shooting at them. Her hands shook as I handed her a simple cheese canapé.

Another woman, a bit over forty, started telling me she was from Kramatorsk. Her son, a student, stayed behind. He will defend the city.

«He forbade me to mother him and sent me to Lviv.» She is scared but believes in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

This is a completely different kind of geography, one that they don’t teach us in school. These cities remain like nails in my heart. Mariupol, Melitopol, Kramatorsk.

Bohdana, a volunteer in Lviv