(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The inhabitants of Komunar, less than 50 kilometres (35 miles) from Ukrainian separatist stronghold Donetsk, feel forgotten by the world as they struggle to meet their most basic needs.
This village northeast of the rebel-controlled city hit the headlines late last year when separatists claimed to have found hundreds of mutilated bodies in a mass grave here.
International monitors never confirmed the massacre, but residents insist that 80 people were killed by Ukrainian troops.
"That's what made us famous," sighs Valentina, a woman in her 50s who declined to give her last name.
Today, Komunar has sunk back into anonymity.
The front has shifted north and the village hasn't seen any artillery attacks since September. But life here is far from back to normal.
"Forty percent of the houses have been destroyed, 30 percent of inhabitants have gone, there's around 2,400 left, including 1,700 elderly and 300 children," says Enrique Menendez of aid group "Responsible Citizens".
Komunar encapsulates many of the region's problems, he adds.
"The young and mobile have left, only the poor and elderly remain. Previously, a bus took people directly to Khanzhonkove (on the outskirts of Donetsk), but today you have to take four buses. There used to be coal deliveries, now everyone has to find their own solution."
Valentina says there's no work to be had either.
"Here, there's nothing but the mines and most of them have been destroyed."
- Monthly parcels -
Komunar hopes for humanitarian help, but the big aid organisations work in Donetsk, which used to have a population of a million, and most won't go to rural areas or those close to the fighting.
"The Red Cross came once, the (local oligarch Rinat) Akhmetov Foundation as well. They said they could only help those over 65. And they don't even bring that," says Alexandra, 26, who gave birth a month before the war started.
A van goes to Donetsk once a month to collect aid parcels.
"What are you supposed to do if you're under 65?" she asks.
Inhabitants chip in to buy grain, jam, nappies; "What we need to survive," Alexandra adds.
The village hall hands out basic warm meals of soup and buckwheat.
"Without that, I couldn't survive," says Vladimir Tseganko, who spent 31 of his 60 years in the mines.
"Thank God the winter isn't too harsh," chimes in the man sitting next to him, Alexander Tarasov, 75, leaning on his walking stick with odd gloves.
"And we don't have too many health problems."
Vladimir swallows a spoonful of soup.
"In any case, we left our health at the bottom of the mine," he says bitterly.
- No doctor, no chemist -
Some, like Galina Babidorich, can't travel anywhere.
Wrapped in a colourful dressing gown, her hands shake constantly because of "neurological problems" and her 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) body temperature verges on hypothermia.
There's no doctor in the village, the pharmacy has closed and she relies on villagers' generosity for medicine.
She hasn't received her pension since last July, and Kiev no longer sends any money to areas under rebel control.
Some of the elderly cross the de facto "border" using forged paperwork so they can collect their pension. Kiev has now set up a permit system to regulate travel in and out of rebel areas.
"I'd do that if I could, but now with the travel permits it's become almost impossible," says Galina.
Without an income, she grows cucumbers, tomatoes, red currants.
"I'm not asking for much," she says. "Some bread, buckwheat, a little sugar and flour."
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