Watch: Ukrainian 15-year-old describes surviving explosion while fleeing home in Chernihiv

“My mother, she was still alive while she was on fire.”

March 25, 2022

2 minutes to read

A 15-year-old from Chernihiv, Ukraine, is sharing his harrowing experience surviving the explosion of a landmine that killed his mother while the family was fleeing their home amid Russian attacks on the city.

Speaking both in English and through an interpreter from a children’s hospital in Lviv, Andriy told CNN’s John Berman his family was forced at gunpoint from their home and were driving away in a car when he believes they hit a landmine.

“One second and I see a yellow explosion, sound in ears,” he told the network. “And I just remember I woke up in road.”

He saw the wrecked car and his mother, on fire.

“My mother, she was still alive while she was on fire,” he said through an interpreter. “I started crawling away from the road.”

Feeling pain from a broken clavicle, blood in his ear, and unable to walk, he clung to some stairs to hide from shooting he heard.

People who heard the explosion and came to the scene found the teen and his mother and took them to a house, wrapping them in blankets.

That’s where his mother died, he said.

“She was still alive when her clothes caught fire,” he said through an interpreter. “And she just burned.”

Once he was taken to a hospital, Andriy said authorities helped him find his father.

The 15-year-old said he doesn’t think he’s realized everything he’s experienced.

Asked what he wants the world to know about his mother, the teen broke down in tears.

“I want them to know that my mother was a very beautiful woman,” he said through an interpreter. “She always liked things to be tidy and clean, and my father and I, we always understood that and supported her. And right now, it’s very difficult without mother.”

Someday, after the war is over, Andriy said he hopes to return to Chernihiv and help his city rebuild.

“It’s my city, all my life living in this,” he said in English. “And it’s hard to look what’s going on. It’s my city.”

Watch the full interview below: