Before the War I Had Toys
Before the War I Had Toys
Children of Grozny
Markha Ibragimova (8 years old)
Used to live at: Kalinin poselok, Grozny
”It’s not a big house. It isn’t ours. It’s somebody else’s. Our apartment is destroyed. It was on Bogdan Khmelnitski Street. The drugs men and the soldiers destroyed it - not only ours - they destroyed lots of apartments. The soldiers still shoot during the night and in the morning. Where? I don’t know. I just hear the shooting. Sometimes bullets hit our backyard, but so far, at least for several weeks, nobody has been killed. When they shoot I’m always afraid that it will hit our home. Mum is afraid too, but my father isn’t.
If there is a big war, my father will be afraid too. When the last war started we had to run away to Ingushetia - a neighbouring republic and we had to live in a train carriage. When we returned to Grozny nothing was left. I still only have one pair of socks.
There will be another war, and we will go away once more. Mum says that the best thing would be to go to Baku and then go to Germany.”
Markha has five siblings, the fifth one was born in January 2001. Markha speaks very little; she prefers to be by herself or with her mother. All her family is malnourished and the children’s clothes are very dirty and ragged. The clothes they have on are the only ones they own.
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