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Tens of thousands of people who were evacuated from Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region are returning to their homes near the front line because they cannot afford to live in safer places.
A train carrying evacuees leaves Pokrovsk for relatively safer western Ukraine once a day.
But another daily train brings back evacuees who have decided to return to their homes.
While the evacuation train is free, the return journey is chargeable.
However, 82-year-old Tamara Markova and her son, Mykola Riaskov, have returned to their home in the village of Malotaranivka, on the outskirts of Kramatorsk.
They spent just five days as evacuees in the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine.
Officials at the temporary shelter where they stayed told Ms. Markova that she would be moved to a nursing home.
Her son, paralyzed on the left side after a stroke, was to be moved to a home for the disabled.
Mother and son found this accommodation unacceptable and decided to return home.
In their rush to leave, they left his wheelchair behind.
If the air raid siren sounds, the 82-year-old woman goes to shelter with her neighbors “until the bombings stop”.
Humanitarian aid is distributed once a month and she calls it enough.
When winter comes, neighbors will help cover their windows with plastic material for basic insulation and clean the chimney of soot.
Maybe they will have gas for heating, maybe not.
Speaking about the lack of support from the state, the elderly woman says that life was much easier under the Soviet Union.
But she expresses herself with the harshest words about Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“This Putin is completely crazy. I can’t understand why they keep him, he destroyed his country, sacrificed so many young people,” she says.
IDPs who make the journey to their homes near the front line are risking their lives.
Ukrainian authorities are outraged that some civilians remain on the warpath, but residents in the Donetsk region are also desperate.
Some feel unwelcome as Russian speakers among Ukrainian speakers in some parts of the country.
But the most common problem is the lack of money to start a new life again.
Tens of thousands of people have returned to rural or industrial communities near the front lines because they cannot afford to live in safer places.
Karina Smulska returned to Pokrovsk a month after the evacuation.
One of the reasons for her return was that a reopened restaurant in her hometown offered her a job as a waitress.
Now, at the age of 18, she is the main financial contributor to her family.
The experience away from the city has given Karina a new appreciation for Pokrovski.
“My values have changed. I used to want to leave my city as soon as possible after I finished college. I thought there was nothing to do and life here was boring. But now that I’m back, I don’t want to move from my home, from my city.”
People want to be where they feel at home, she explains.
“They want to be at home, within their walls, in their city, on their streets”./Voa
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