The 50-year-old is still reeling from the traumatic incidents.
Trigger Warning: This article contains graphic details that may be distressing to readers.
Stories of war are always horrific. While many innocent lives are lost, the ones that do survive suffer deep mental and physical wounds that are hard to ever heal from.
One such story involved a 50-year-old Ukrainian woman who told the BBC that she had been raped and her husband had been killed by invading soldiers. To protect her identity, her name has been changed to Anna. She lives in a quiet, rural neighborhood 70km (45miles) west of Kyiv.
'Russian soldiers raped me and killed my husband' https://t.co/X1PyTHPTKx
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 11, 2022
The terrifying incident took place on March 7 when she and her husband had been home. Suddenly, a foreign soldier barged into their home. "At gunpoint, he took me to a house nearby. He ordered me: 'Take your clothes off or I'll shoot you.' He kept threatening to kill me if I didn't do as he said. Then he started raping me," she said. Anna's attacker was a young, thin, Chechen fighter allied with Russia, according to her. "While he was raping me, four more soldiers entered. I thought that I was done for. But they took him away. I never saw him again," she said.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg .. violence & rape is used now as a weapon of war by #Russian invaders"
— Lotte Leicht (@LotteLeicht1) April 12, 2022
Kateryna Cherepakha, of La Strada-#Ukraine, tells #UN SC that her org's emergency hotlines has received calls accusing Russian soldiers of rape.https://t.co/PYmt4iT5Q6
Anna thinks she was rescued by a separate unit of Russian soldiers. When she came back home to her husband she made a horrible discovery. He had been shot in the abdomen. Narrating the story, Anna couldn't stop breaking down. "He had tried to run after me to save me, but he was hit by a round of bullets," she said. They tried to get help but they couldn't go to a hospital because of the war. They stayed at a neighbor's house for a while but the husband succumbed to his injuries and died two days later. What's more heartbreaking is that Anna had to bury her husband's body in their backyard where a tall, wooden cross stands at the head of the grave.
Elderly Ukrainian woman says she was raped after Russians took her village: "I wish he had killed me instead of what he did" https://t.co/SUo54zkDS9
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) April 12, 2022
A few of the soldiers who rescued her had stayed in her house. But they would point their gun at her and ask her to give them her husband's belongings. They even left behind "drugs and Viagra. They would get high and they were often drunk. Most of them are killers, rapists and looters. Only a few are OK," she said. Just down the road another woman in her 40s was allegedly raped and killed. She was buried in a grave in the garden of the house. "I want to ask Putin, why is this happening?" said Anna. "I don't understand. We're not living in the Stone Age, why can't he negotiate? Why is he occupying and killing?"
Multiple reports: Russian soldiers gang rape Ukrainian women threatening them with guns and knives in front of their children. Among the most monstrous cases is the rape and murder of a 9yo girl by 11 Russian soldiers.https://t.co/bi1lf6dxl2
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) April 7, 2022
References:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61071243
Representational Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Yuttana Jaowattana | EyeEm
