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- Jayne Morgan
- BBC Wales Investigates
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Yuliia’s children sleeping while hiding from the horrors of war
Hearing how her best friend’s children drank rainwater from puddles to survive the war in Ukraine is why Ukrainian Nataliia Roberts wants to bring her to the UK as soon as possible.
Yuliia and her three daughters used to leave their basement shelter in the besieged city of Mariupol after it rained to quench their thirst.
Not only did they lack water and food; there was no toilet, shower, or electricity in their makeshift retreat.
Nataliia now wants her childhood friend with her in Wales, where she has lived with her husband Dewi for five years.
“We had a little bowl [de sopa] for three children once a day”, explains Yuliia. “And a glass of water for three children to clean themselves.”
After their home was destroyed by Russian bombs, Yuliia and her daughters — ages 11, six and three — had to seek refuge in a communal basement that provided some shelter, but she barely had enough food to feed the children.
“The children would ask for food, so she started to feed them at bedtime, so they could feel full before bed,” says Nataliia from her home in North Wales.
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There is no toilet or shower in the bunker where Yuliia and her three daughters took refuge.
“When it started to rain, first they drank water from the puddle. Then they found some pots to fill with water.”
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Yuliia and one of her daughters in a photo taken before the war
‘There was nothing’
Yuliia ended up having to leave her daughters alone at the shelter while she went to get fresh water.
“There was a well three kilometers away. I had to run there under gunfire, under bombs”, recalls Yuliia when reporting her daily life on video for the BBC Wales Investigates programme.
And when the middle daughter got sick, there was no medicine.
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Yuliia had to take refuge in an underground bunker after her apartment in Mariupol was destroyed by Russian bombs.
“I had money, but I couldn’t buy anything because there was nothing anywhere, everything was broken, everything was looted and destroyed,” she says.
Yuliia and Nataliia have been close friends since school and have always kept in touch — until war broke out in Ukraine in February.
Nataliia talks to Yuliia whenever she can to support her friend
For days, sometimes weeks, it wasn’t safe for Yuliia to text or call her friend 2,000 miles away.
Nataliia had to make do with intermittent updates to daily video accounts of Yuliia and the girls in the underground bunker as her husband fought the Russians on the front lines.
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Yuliia and her three daughters hid in their underground refuge for several weeks.
Nataliia managed to get her mother and stepfather out of eastern Ukraine when the situation began to deteriorate, and Liudmyla and Sasha now live with her, husband Dewi, four-year-old Julia and one-year-old Jacob in Caernarfon, Welsh.
Now the 32-year-old accountant is doing everything she can to help her friend Yuliia and her family become Ukrainian refugees in the UK.
Credit, Yulia
Yuliia and her daughters are desperate to join family friend Nataliia in North Wales
Yuliia and her daughters are among 11 million Ukrainians forced to flee their homes — weeks before the United Nations-led evacuation of Mariupol begins.
The city is strategically important because from there the Russians can control the entire eastern portion of Ukraine’s coast.
Mariupol, besieged since early March, is now mainly under the command of Russian forces — although several hundred Ukrainian soldiers remain at the Azovstal metallurgical plant in the south of the city.
The port city of Mariupol has been surrounded by Russian troops since early March
Russian forces have blocked off the sprawling industrial complex and continue their aerial bombardment, but no attempt has yet been made to pull Ukrainian troops out of a network of tunnels beneath the factory.
Russia has been charged with war crimes for its intense bombing of the city. According to the local mayor, at least 20,000 civilians were killed. More than 100,000 people remain trapped there.
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By train and then by minibus, Yuliia went to Poland with her three daughters
By train and then by minibus, Yuliia headed for Poland with her three daughters, not knowing when she would see her husband again, or if she could join Nataliia and her family in Wales.
But it’s the war scenes that are affecting Yuliia the most.
Nataliia Roberts and her mother Liudmyla share a cup of tea at Nataliia’s home in Caernarfon, Wales
“She saw people in Mariupol being killed by missiles and who had no hands or legs, whose bodies were destroyed,” says Nataliia.
“I would love for Yuliia to be with us here in Wales. I dream that one day we will have a cup of tea in our dining room and that she and the girls can have a happier life. I would love that.”
Some 27,000 Ukrainian refugees — out of 86,000 visas approved — have come to the UK and Wales has said it wants to be a “country of refuge” for those fleeing the horrors of war in their homeland.
And 10,000 Welsh families have provided homes for Ukrainian refugees, but as of the end of last month, the British Home Office has issued just 2,300 visas to those wishing to come to Wales.
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Yuliia’s Daughters Watch a Video on Their Mother’s Phone
The Welsh government has approved nearly 700 visa applications so far but could not tell the BBC how many refugees actually arrived in the country, insisting it had asked the UK government for the data but was told it was not available.
The Home Office said it was working “as quickly as possible” to provide the information to local governments, adding that more than 86,000 visas had been granted under various schemes. It also said it is simplifying forms and increasing the number of employees to speed up authorizations.
The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
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