Thanks to support from donors like Norway, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, continues to support families in Ukraine with emergency response following the relentless Russian attacks.
When the war reached their hometown of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the Davydenko family decided to flee to Kryvyi Rih in neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region in search of safety. They tried to build a new life, however, later chose to return, feeling homesick and unwilling to give up their businesses.
“Home is home,” says Kateryna, who worked as a private entrepreneur in Pokrovsk, owning a clothing shop.
Unfortunately, with the war only continuing and intensifying, staying in Pokrovsk was impossible due to the rapid advance of Russian troops and relentless shelling. In Autumn of 2024, the family left again and had finally found some stability, this time in Odesa in the southern part of Ukraine.
They rented a spacious apartment to accommodate their family of six. Maksym secured a job at a local plant, while Kateryna started working as a store consultant, helping to support her parents and grandmother, who struggles to move around without assistance. Their daughter Oleksandra, 9 years old, could attend school in person again. Life, slowly, was becoming manageable.
But on the night of 14 November, everything changed. At 10:00 PM, a drone strike hit Odesa. One of the drones landed in the garden of their building, causing major damage. Inside the apartment, windows shattered, doors twisted, and debris flew across rooms.
“There was a sudden explosion. I saw a yellow flash, a loud bang, and then darkness. I thought it was the end,” Maksym recalls. “My daughter started to scream, having a panic attack, and I ran towards her. She was sitting on her grandfather’s lap, shouting and crying.”
The family rushed to the basement, as the attack continued. Once it was safe, Maksym assessed the damage. “I saw our kitchen was completely exposed to the street. Everything was on fire. I thought, I no longer have a home,” he remembers.
Kateryna’s mother, Nataliia adds: “I had to move out of my home in Pokrovsk and then later from Kryvyi Rih in search of safety and better opportunities also as a need treatment for my neurological condition. I ended up in a comparatively safe city, I thought, but the war keeps chasing us.”
The following morning, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and its NGO partner, the Tenth of April, arrived with emergency shelter kits to support the Davydenko family, and many others, affected by the strike. The kits contain materials like wooden boards and plastic sheeting to enable people to make urgent repairs to their homes – minimizing further damages from the weather and allowing them to stay warm during the freezing months of winter.
Thanks to support from government donors like Norway, UNHCR and partners have supported more than 425,000 people across Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war with emergency shelter kits, as part of the response immediately after attacks. The most vulnerable families who are not able to effectively use the kits by themselves, are further assisted by UNCHR’s NGO partners to install the materials. In 2024, UNHCR and partners provided emergency shelter support in 24 regions of Ukraine, with most of the assistance going to people in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, and Sumy regions.
Back in Odesa, the emergency materials were vital for the family, explains Maksym: “The Tenth of April distributed materials to everyone in need. Me and my farther-in-law used boards and plastic sheets to seal the windows and door in the kitchen. It was the most-needed thing at that moment. We didn’t have to think about where to go or whom to pay to buy it. That is how we survived the winter and didn’t have to move for a third time”.