Displaced and heartbroken over Bakhmut, Liudmyla rises and embraces humanitarian mission with hope

Despite facing loss and witnessing the devastation of her hometown, Bakhmut, in Ukraine's Donetsk region, World Vision's Security and Access Manager Liudmyla Serdiukova now dedicates life to helping her countrymen in need. Her story, both heartbreaking and inspiring, is a journey from rebuilding from scratch to volunteering, and ultimately finding purpose in serving those in need. 

The day of February 24, 2022, is hardly to be forgotten ever. Liudmyla was woken up by an unexpected call at 5:00 a.m. on a dark winter morning. “Liudmyla, the war has begun,” she recalls clearly from the other end of the phone call.

At that time, she was the head of the procurement department for a multinational company, a factory that manufactured plasterboard and gypsum compounds.

Employees underwent frequent emergency training and were briefed on a regular basis in the event of an emergency evacuation.

This knowledge came in handy when the high-level management team, which Liudmyla was a part of, decided to evacuate all the plant’s employees, including their families.

“We were as one family because I had worked there for 15 years,” she explains.       

Soon, chaos and dread covered Bakhmut, the front-line city. Residents emptied store shelves, while long lineups formed at gas stations. The sound of artillery became louder, and internet and mobile connections stopped working.

People froze their limbs while standing in lines at ATMs from early morning until late at night to withdraw cash.

Liudmyla’s mother, 68, refused to leave her flat. “I had begged her on my knees to leave the city for a week,” Liudmyla says.

“Neither I nor my 27-year-old son with his wife could move out of the city without her,” she adds.

No other way out

Liudmyla was lying on the floor in the corridor of her two-room flat, trembling. The night’s silence was shattered by a dreadful howl of an air siren piercing her to the bones.

While she hugged her son, a missile dropped 500 meters from the five-story residential building where she had spent her whole life.

The next second, she heard a loud explosion nearby and felt how the walls were suddenly shaking. This time, the missile dropped 200 meters from her.

In April 2023, she packed a few belongings – an album with old family photos, her cat Berzelius named after a famous Swiss chemist, and left her hometown, as it is known now, forever.

“My whole life, and the entire history of my family are captured in old, printed photographs. This album was particularly special to me since it contained all of the old photographs left by my grandmother,” she shares.

I feel empowered as the team is united by one common goal: to change people’s lives for the better.

It took Liudmyla and her family 14 hours to reach Cherkasy, a city in central Ukraine. She discovered a month after their departure that the factory where she had worked for 15 years had been destroyed by missile attacks.

She learned a few days later that the missile had also completely ravaged her apartment.

“When I left, I cried into my pillow every day,” recalls Liudmyla.

“The hardest thing was to realize that you had lost your whole life: friends, and the place where you were born, where you grew up, where your ancestors were born and raised. Their graves remain there,” she goes on.

On a mission

One of the Christian organizations that supported displaced people in Cherkasy helped her to overcome her mental difficulties and return to life.

She volunteered for a year, delivering humanitarian aid and bringing hope to Ukrainians afflicted by the war, just as she was. 

“What can you do personally in this situation? You can help people like you, so that they do not lose themselves, and do not give up but try to find themselves and continue living,” shares Luidmyla.

“Life goes on. You are alive and healthy. You have a head, arms, and legs, so you can be of some use,” she added.

In a few months, Liudmyla became World Vision’s Security and Access Manager and moved to Dnipro. In a new city, this strong woman started from scratch.

Her knowledge and experience are valuable in managing the security and safety of others who work to help and protect the most vulnerable.

“I feel empowered as the team is united by one common goal: to change people’s lives for the better,” says Liudmyla.

But when she thinks about her hometown, her blue eyes instantly fill with tears and become the same color as the sky, which now covers Bakhmut – an ash-thick eternal fog due to the incessant artillery shooting.

All her loved ones are separated by different Ukrainian regions. Her son with his wife is in Kyiv, and her mother with her cat stays in Cherkasy.

Since February 24th, 2022, Liudmyla hasn’t had the luxury to make plans for longer than a day, but she still has dreams and wishes for this new year.

“Peace. We all rebuild, raise and repair. The most crucial is the coming of peace,” concludes Liudmyla, almost whispering.

To date, World Vision Ukraine Crisis Response has reached over 1,569,000 people in Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and Georgia, supporting internally displaced, refugees and host communities with education, protection, mental health, cash, livelihoods, and basic needs services.

Story and photos by Communications Officer Tetiana Dolhiier