“It is hard to remember the exact date of my concussion. Under shelling, you get into this endless process, which has no dates,” said the man who had just fled Kharkiv in the east of Ukraine.

Nataliia* sat on the floor in the sport complex in Uzhhorod, in Ukraine’s west, listening to the man’s story, as well as many of the other internally displaced persons (IDPs) there. Nataliia is a human rights officer working with the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU).

One of her key jobs now is to gather first-hand information on allegations of international human rights abuses and humanitarian law violations resulting from the armed attack of the Russian Federation on Ukraine. She talks to people on the ground, listens to their stories and documents what has happened to them or their loved ones. In the sports complex, she looked for information that can help to verify civilian casualty incidents that are happening across the country.

“Some people I talk to have lost their relatives and friends,” she said. “Some lost literally everything in their lives and have no place to go.”