In every street there are damaged or burnt-out houses. The centre of the small town of Maryinka, just a stone’s throw from the pro-Russian rebel-held capital Donetsk, is deserted. Shots are fired back and forth each night. The few inhabitants, left to their own devices, seek refuge in the air-raid shelter, where the ground trembles from the force of the explosions.
‘When she sleeps, she flails her arms wildly,’ says resident Oksana Miroshnichenko of her nine-year-old daughter Alissa. ‘The minute the shooting starts I give her tranquillizer tablets.’
