Why a Ukrainian mother wrote on her toddler's body as they fled the war
The names of 2-year-old Vira Makoviy's family were written in ink on her back
When Sasha Makoviy made the decision to flee the bombing in Kyiv three weeks ago with her two-year-old daughter, Vira, she realized that their safety was neither guaranteed nor would be immediate.
So she put a small piece of paper in her daughter's pocket with her name and the names of her extended family on it, explaining how they could be contacted if mother and daughter got separated. But she worried that if Vira was wounded along the way, and if she herself were killed, the paper might go missing.
That's when Makoviy made what she called a "painful" decision to mark her daughter's body with her family's contact information.
"It's hard to understand that in [the] 21st century you have to do that kind of work, just to be prepared to be dead or to be separated [from] your lovely baby."
Makoviy and her toddler did make it out of the embattled country, a long journey that took them first to central Ukraine, then to Moldova, to Romania, on to Brussels and, finally, to France.
She said her daughter remembers Kyiv, and when she shows the girl photos on her phone, her daughter asks about who she sees and wonders what they are doing.
We had a peaceful, beautiful life," Makoviy said, "and in one day, everything [turned] upside down and was really, really horrible."
