Dispatches from Kyiv: 2 Mizo nuns, a raging war and their families waiting back home

At his quiet home overlooking the blue mountains of Aizawl, J Dengdailova (59) is spending sleepless nights, worrying over a war that has broken out more than 6,000 km away (as the crow flies) in Ukraine—a place his sister Ann Frida, a Catholic nun, refuses to leave.

Working under Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, Sister Ann Frida (48) and Sister Rosella Nuthangi (65), both from Mizoram, chose to remain in the war-torn country to help the displaced, injured and those in need. With each passing day and the conflict dragging on, Dengdailova’s worries too have doubled. He, however, couldn’t be prouder of his “brave little sister”. “Although we are worried about her and Sister Rosella’s safety, we are extremely proud that they have decided to stay back and fulfil the vow made in the name of Christ,” J Dengdailova tells The Federal.

Earlier in March, Mary Prema Pierick, the then superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, Kolkata, spoke to the nuns and asked them to move to a safer place. (Sister Prema Pierick has since retired for health reasons and been replaced by Sister Mary Joseph.) The two Mizo nuns, however, volunteered to stay back in capital Kyiv where they have been working at a home that looks after orphans and senior citizens.

Following the Russian invasion on February 24, the place has been turned into a bomb shelter where injured and displaced people seeking refuge are looked after by nuns, including the two from Mizoram.

While there is no news of any other Mizo person stranded in Ukraine, until recently the east European country was host to more than 22,000 Indians, mostly students pursuing degrees in medicine. According to Minister of State for Civil Aviation VK Singh, around 22,500 Indian nationals returned to India between February 1 and March 11.

India started evacuating its citizens from Ukraine’s neighbouring countries – Poland, Romania and Hungary on February 26 – since Ukrainian authorities shut down the country’s airspace for civilian aircraft following the invasion. As many as 90 evacuation flights were operated under Operation Ganga, including 14 Indian Air Force flights, the minister said.

It’s been more than a month since the Russian military marched deep into the country and Ukraine has been resisting the advances. The period has been marked by indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure. It is news such as this that keeps Dengdailova and the rest of the family anxious all day.

Mornings begin with a prayer for Sister Ann Frida, who joined the Missionaries of Charity in 1995. She has since worked in Estonia, Armenia, Siberia and Lithuania before she was sent to Kyiv, in 2019 to work there for 10 years.

From her end, Sister Ann makes it a point to drop a voice message on her sister-in-law’s phone almost every day, informing her about her safety.

“It has almost become a habit now. For the past one month, she has been sending a message almost every day from an inmate’s mobile phone. Till the time I don’t hear her voice, I keep worrying,” says her sister-in-law Teresa Vanlalsawmi (57).

Teresa taps her phone gallery and plays one of the messages for The Federal. A resolute but kind voice greets everyone back home. “Hello everyone, we are doing well, thanks to the grace of God. At 4 pm Ukraine time today, we shall have a holy mass. We have heard that from tomorrow there will be a three-day curfew, banning everyone from leaving their homes as the Russian army has intensified the attacks on Kyiv. So, the government has called for a curfew, requesting people to stay indoors from tomorrow [March 16, 2022]. Please continue praying for us, and may God bless you all,” says Sister Ann Frida in a voice message sent on March 15.

For Teresa, who has carefully stored all the clips, it’s like keeping a diary for her sister-in-law – March 15, March 16…March 28, March 29. On most days, the messages are short but crisp. “She mostly sounds calm… maybe to put us at ease so that we don’t panic. As has been her habit, she often thanks her family for its constant support and prayers for her safety. She then tells us about her plans for the day,” says Teresa.

Sister Ann’s elder brother Dengdailova joins in: “On some days, she would call my wife on WhatsApp and both of them would pray together,” says Dengdailova, who is the chairman of the St Mary’s Parish Church in Aizawl.

Teresa and Ann Frida are more like friends. “Our friendship goes back a long way…even before I married her brother. In fact, she was my bridesmaid,” Teresa fondly recalls.

Sister Ann Frida, according to Teresa, has always been an oasis of calm. “Even now from the war zone, she tells us everything is fine and that people have been kind enough to send them food and other essentials. Even as the food stock depletes, there is always someone replenishing it. She says ‘this is God’s love in action’.”

Sister Rosella Nuthangi, who last visited Mizoram in 2015, also has similar things to tell her worried family members waiting to see her someday soon at their native village in Sihphir, about 15 kms north of Aizawl. The 65-year-old nun took her first oath in 1983 and was sent to the then USSR in 1984. In 2017, she was sent to Kyiv from Saint Petersburg.

Her niece Sylveen Zothansiami says she last spoke to her aunt on March 27. “My aunt tells us that they are mostly busy caring for the sick and wounded at the shelter house. So, there is very little time to talk on the phone. Earlier, there was a landline phone in the shelter home but it’s almost impossible to get through to that number. We get to hear her voice only when she calls or texts us.”

According to Sylveen, Sisters Rosella and Ann, along with three other Missionaries of Charity nuns from different nations, have been taking care of 37 homeless Ukrainians inside the packed house.

“People are really kind, sending food items and clothes to our shelter. We try our best to distribute these donations to the local people, but since transport facilities are not easily available and people are unable to leave their houses due to constant firing and bombing, we are not able to carry out our charity work as desired,” Sister Ann says in a recent voice message.

“This morning we received soaps and sanitary napkins from charities abroad. Much to our surprise and God’s grace, we have more commodities than before the war started.”

While most conversations revolve around prayers for an end to the war, or the kindness shown by strangers, there isn’t much mention of the bombings and attacks. “So far she didn’t mention anything in detail about bombings or the attacks on civilian areas,” says Teresa, who last met her sister-in-law in 2013.

But something that she said on March 28 has Teresa a bit worried. “She said ‘we can regularly hear bombing and shelling sounds, but our house is still in a safe zone. At 10 this morning, we had the Holy Mass’.”

Again, on March 29, she says: “Last evening, I went outside to bless the area with holy water and saw around six to seven Russian rockets overhead. I immediately ran inside. Luckily, they exploded far away. This morning too, the bombing sounds were intense. We ask you to pray for our safety as we never know when the Russian bombs would land on our shelter. We also ask your prayers for the Russian army so that they could change [their] barbaric ways and stop the war on innocent people.”

Teresa feels this – increased shelling and bombing – could be an indication that the war is intensifying. That is why when they heard on Tuesday about Moscow’s promise of scaling back its military operations near Kyiv and the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, all those closely watching the TV news heaved a collective sigh of relief.

However, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv will not decrease its defence efforts despite “positive” signals from Ukraine-Russia peace talks held in Istanbul.

“We can say that the signals that we hear from the negotiations are positive, but those signals do not drown out the explosions or Russian shells,” Zelensky said in a video address late Tuesday.

According to Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby, “No one should be fooled by the Kremlin’s recent claim that it will just suddenly reduce military attacks near Kyiv or reports that it will withdraw all its forces. We think that a small number of Russian forces have left from around Kyiv.”

Back in Mizoram, friends and families of the two nuns don’t know what to expect. For now, they are desperately clinging on to what Sister Ann said in one of the voice messages: “Kyiv is quite safe and the Ukrainian army has put up a strong defence.”