10 days of war and 10 days of no sleep - Ukrainians' torment as invasion rages on

Alina Mishkur lives in the Kyiv region, about 30 miles from the centre of Kyiv, with her mother, father and aunt. She writes about her experience of her home country turning into a war zone, and dozens of children becoming the innocent victims.

On 24th February - the day Russia's invasion of Ukraine began - it was my dad’s birthday.

He turned 62, but the stress of war, means he looks like he has instead turned 82.

From the moment we heard explosions so close to our home, while quietly sleeping in our beds, he doesn’t sleep at nights.

It’s the 10th day of war and genocide and the 10th night my father, who looks so much older than he looked just 10 days ago, doesn’t sleep.

He doesn’t sleep and looks into the sky. In case the rocket falls, he will take his family into basement, but the basement is so old that it might not withstand the hit. But at least it's a chance to survive.

Ukrainians are peaceful people, we never attack other nations and were not ready for this war.

It’s such a horror not to sleep at night, expecting the rocket to fall on you.

Imagine, you live your normal life, quietly sleep at night and some psychopath comes and takes it away from you, divides it into before and after.

But personally for me, I consider myself lucky. My village has not been attacked yet. It's not been attacked like Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kyiv and other cities of my country.

Our kindergarten and hospitals have not been attacked like other kindergartens and hospitals of my country, people and children in my village have not been attacked like other people in my country.

On Thursday, three children of a friend of a friend were killed.

My mother has just told me two more kids have just been killed.

Dozens of children have died in this war so far, and many more have been wounded.

We are attacked a lot from sky. And NATO has just refused to close the sky.

Dear people, I believe in you, Ukraine believes in you. You claim you are all Ukrainians now. Please prove that. Don’t be silent.

Please stop our kids from being a human shield in this horrible war.