Ukrainian war victims: Mothers and minors’ perspective

Abstract

The current study explored the war experience from the victims’ narrative by interviewing 15 displaced Ukrainians hosted in Greece. Concretely, it examined their experiences and emotions from the beginning of the war, the conditions under which they lived until they fled Ukraine, and their reception in Greece. To better analyse the data, the researchers followed a thematic analysis and divided the participants into three groups based on similar characteristics: mothers, teenagers, and children. Major psychological trauma and financial and integration difficulties were evident in all participants. Moreover, several challenges were reported regarding the policies and practices of reception, especially in the educational field. Last, despite the limitation of the small sample and no male participants, this study opens the way for further investigation of the long-lasting effects of war traumatisation and the challenges host countries face in supporting refugees.

Keywords

• refugees
• war trauma
• crisis
• family
• experience