Ifigenia was asleep at home when the blast jolted her awake. ‘I was the one who heard the explosion and the sirens,’ she says. ‘I packed our belongings, woke my baby, and we left in the middle of the night. We feared that we might never return.’
The blast on 2 March came from nearby RAF Akrotiri, a British base just a stone’s throw from her home in the Cypriot city of Limassol. A Shahed-type drone had struck an aircraft hanger in what is believed to have been an attack launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon. In the days that followed, more drones were intercepted, transforming the sun-soaked holiday island into a place of fear.
