00:00Newly arrived and feeling dazed. It's the second time they've escaped and left their home in two years.
00:08We ran from a shelter to our house and then back again. We ran several times when we could.
00:17We hid in the house, under the table, as close as possible to our baby. We lost our passports.
00:26They're too afraid to give their names in case they're identified, because they live near the Russian border.
00:32Apart from one bag of clothing, they have nothing else.
00:36Every day this territory is under shelling and the number of people who were affected by the war increase every next day, unfortunately.
00:48And also Sumy city is under shelling too, and people wounded, injured and unfortunately dying.
00:55Lyudmila is an administrator for a group of five villages. She also fled her home to avoid artillery fire and helps at the evacuation center.
01:05People left on their own to save their lives. They left to find somewhere safe to live.
01:12First large families with children, and of course we asked these families to leave the area, because it was extremely dangerous.
01:22Only a few towns and villages near the border are still populated, deserted as they can be shelled during most days.
01:30There is an exclusion zone regulated by military checkpoints on most roads.
01:36Hundreds of people have left these kind of villages along the northern border of Ukraine and Russia.
01:42Most people have left, but yet many remain, despite the danger of occasional shelling and the Russians not being too far away.
01:50But they say they can't leave, because they don't want to leave their homes.
01:54Most residents stay indoors to avoid being seen by Russian drones, but others carry on.
02:02Yes, they are bombing us every day, he says. Being so near to the border, the Russians give us a hard time.
02:10For more than a month, local charities and the Red Cross have evacuated thousands of people from hundreds of kilometers of northern Ukraine.
02:19Each person, each family has to be helped with accommodation, clothing and food.
02:26YOLO Avdavit, CGTN, Sumy, northern Ukraine.
