By Meryem Goktas
KIEV, Ukraine
A delegation from an all-woman international convoy on Sunday took part in a ceremony in Ukraine commemorating the victims of the conflict in the county’s east since 2014.
Hundreds of women gathered together in the capital Kiev, at Michailivska Square, to commemorate their relatives on Mother’s Day.
Ukraine has been mired in a devastating conflict in its eastern regions since March 2014, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea after an illegal independence vote.
The warring parties signed a cease-fire in February 2015, but the fighting continued, claiming more than 10,000 lives, according to the UN.
The UN General Assembly voted to proclaim the Russian annexation illegal. Along with many UN countries, the U.S., the EU and Turkey also do not recognize Crimea as Russian territory.
Olga Bogomolets, a Ukrainian deputy who invited the Conscience Convoy delegation to Kiev, received the delegation at Michailivska Square.
The delegation included Munira Subasic, the head of the Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa, representing Bosnian women.
Subasic spoke to the mothers of the victims and laid flowers at the Memory Wall with the pictures of over 10,000 victims.
Dima Moussa, a Syrian lawyer who represented the Syrian victim women in the delegation, also spoke to mothers of the victims and shared her solidarity with the women of Ukraine.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Drozd Mariya Sergiy told the painful loss of her son during the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
She said her son Drozd Vladimir Mykolaovic started to fight for Ukraine in 2015 and was killed in the Donetsk Oblast region the next year, at age 25.
Sergiy said that it is important to gather together to commemorate and honor the life of their loved ones.
"People will remember our children, that our children not only fought but defended the homeland, people will remember them as defenders of Ukraine," she said.
Conscience Convoy
Currently, over 6,700 women -- over 400 of them young girls -- are still living in prisons run by Syrian regime forces, according to a statement by the Conscience Convoy.
The International Conscience Convoy, which calls itself the "voice of oppressed women in Syria," on March 6 started a three-day journey with 55 buses from Istanbul and ended in Hatay, Turkey, near the Syrian border, with a final rally to mark International Women's Day with over 10,000 women.
Women from over 50 countries, including Syria, Ukraine, Chile, Palestine, Iraq, Britain, East Turkestan, Brazil, Malaysia, Pakistan, Kuwait, and Qatar, addressed a large crowd at a fairground in Antakya, Hatay.
Bogomolets also took part in the Conscience Convoy's rally in Hatay and invited the delegation to Kiev to support Ukrainian women who lost their husbands, sons, brothers, or relatives during the conflict in the east.
