Reference :
V-P-UA-E-00534
Date :
14/07/2016
Caption :
Donetsk. The ICRC helps families find relatives. Olga, whose brother Gennadii disappeared in autumn 2014, sits on the couch where he slept in their home, beneath a hanging carpet he gave her as a gift.
Confidentiality level :
public
Publication restrictions :
publication without restrictions
Description :
ICRC website article, 05.10.2016: "Ukraine crisis: Uncertainty on both sides of the contact line. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and grandparents of the missing on both sides of the conflict in Ukraine cope as best they can with an impossible, wholly intolerable situation.
Waiting to discover what has happened to their relatives means living in limbo, denied the chance to mourn or a reason to stop hoping against hope. This uncertainty has a severe emotional, social and economic impact on the loved ones of the missing. [...]
Olga is 30 years old. She lives with her daughter at her mother’s house. Up until two years ago her brother Gennadii, who Olga was very close to, also lived there.
“Gennadii was my big brother. People always were drawn to him. He was active, a sportsman and a boxer. He worked for the mountain rescue service. The house was always full of people when he was around, but he always found time for me, listened to me. I miss him so much,” she says.
Gennnadiy was 36 years old when he went missing. People said that they had seen him wounded. But no-one knows if he was taken to the hospital, if he was treated, or if he survived. Olga and her mother searched for him everywhere, going to every hospital they could think of. But they had no success and found no news of him.
Gennadii has a wife and a twelve-year-old daughter, who live in a nearby city. They stay in contact with Olga, hoping that one of them will hear or discover something, some piece of information that could lead them to him. So far, this has not happened, but they say they will never stop looking for him.
The photograph is part of the ICRC exhibition "Uncertainty".
Original material :
digital
Resolution :
5760x3840
Orientation :
landscape
Colour/B&W :
colour
