Iryna Gopanchuk and her daughter Kateryna were killed in Mariupol on March 15, 2022. A shell struck the courtyard where they were preparing food with their neighbors. Four other people were killed nearby: two neighbors (a young woman and a man) and two passersby (a young woman and a young man).
Iryna was 52 years old. Kateryna was 13. They lived at 10 Tramvayny Lane. That is where the tragedy occurred. Eyewitnesses recalled that Kateryna’s body was found almost intact. Iryna’s head had been severed. Neighbors placed a note in the deceased woman’s pocket with information about her and her daughter. The bodies lay in the courtyard until March 30, when they were taken to the morgue. Most likely, Katya and Irina are buried in the village of Mangush in separate graves. But exactly where—no one knows.
Irina’s eldest daughter, Olena Svitlychna, said: “My grandmother is 80 years old. She stayed in Mariupol to find the graves of her daughter and granddaughter. Once, my grandmother went to the morgue and felt ill. She went a second time. They took her information. They said they would call and let her know when to come. My grandmother submitted a DNA sample.” But a year after the tragedy, the results still hadn’t come back.
Olena learned of her mother’s and sister’s deaths in Vinnytsia. It was in this city that Iryna studied and lived in her youth. She was born in Mariupol and spent her final years there. She devoted her entire life to her children: Olena, Denys, and Katya. She loved her grandchildren, Melania and Lev. She cared for her mother, Alla Mykolayivna. For a year and a half, Iryna worked at City Hospital No. 2, in the internal medicine department. After the full-scale war began, as long as she could, she ran to the hospital every day to bring food to those who could no longer get home.
“Mom loved to read. I don’t think there’s a single book she hasn’t read. Grandma wanted to instill that love of reading in me and my brother, but I used to joke that Mom had read everything for us. Mom became a grandmother early—I had my daughter when I was 16. She’d say, ‘I’m not a grandmother; I’ll be a friend to my granddaughter.’ My daughter got used to calling her grandmother just by her first name. When we saw each other for the last time near the house, I asked Mom and Katya to take care of themselves; they refused to leave the city with us. Mom said, ‘Don’t worry, everything will be fine!’” recalled Olena.
Iryna Gopanchuk is survived by her daughter, son, two grandchildren, and her mother.
At 9:00 a.m.—a nationwide minute of silence. The Donetsk Regional Military Administration and the Memorial platform: those killed by Russia are remembering the residents of Donetsk Oblast killed by Russians.