The past two weeks have seen conflict areas become the theatre of deadly violence. Sarah Carabott spoke to four people to bring the reality in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and Libya closer to home.

Over the weekend, Ukrainian troops advanced towards Donetsk, in a bid to retake the city which, for months, has been held by pro-Russia rebels.

Maria Falzon, from Donetsk, who has been in Malta for the past three years, believes the large majority of people there do not want to be ruled by Russia.

Ms Falzon, whose father is Russian and mother is Ukrainian, believes that, although they were never rich, people were better off before the conflict.

“My family in Ukraine tells me that they were better off before. At least, they had some money and they went about their life quietly.

“Although the government had to be changed, the biggest mistake during the overthrow was that no special group took care of restraining terrorists,” she said, noting that some people from central and eastern Ukraine were exhibiting strong patriotic characteristics and would, for example, speak only in Ukrainian.

The conflict has cost the lives of a lot of young children as families cannot afford to flee the worst hit parts.

Ms Falzon’s former classmate died in June, two weeks after she was injured in an explosion where she lost her four-year-old daughter.

Although now in a safer place, Ms Falzon’s brother and sister have lived for some months in fear of terrorists. They are now trying to get back to their normal routine.

Although her sister was last week able to go back to work, having stopped in mid-April, her brother’s place of work was destroyed in an explosion and he is still without a job.

Violence in Libya, 207 miles south of Malta, is reportedly at its highest since the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Malta has called for a ceasefire and warned against all travel to Libya.

Mark Bamber, who works in Tripoli, said business was still being discussed and transacted in the city despite the turmoil.

“Over the past week, the city itself was safer and calmer. However, in the distance you can hear artillery and explosions, which is a reflection of what’s going on near the airport highway.

“People in the city are going through hard times because of a shortage of food, medicine, cooking gas and fuel, which means some are unable to travel around the city and go to work,” Mr Bamber, CEO of the Libyan practice of KPMG, said.

Meanwhile, people are concerned about the turmoil the country is going through.

“Although, a few months ago, Congress asked all militias to leave the city, there still remains the problem that, if all militias do exit Tripoli, they will leave a vacuum behind and there will still be a need for security to protect the residents from anarchy. This could be an opportunity for other armed groups to move in and the cycle begins anew.”

People were also worried about two militias fighting it out on the doorstep of Tripoli.

Democracy was not something that could be switched on and off like a light bulb. A country under dictatorship for 40 years could not just wake up one day and gain democracy, Mr Bamber said.

Gaza is slightly smaller than one Malta and two Gozos, but with four times the population. The death toll there stands at more than 1,000 while tens of thousands of people have been displaced.

Osama Damo, media officer of Save the Children, who is in Gaza City, described the situations as “very tense”.

“Everyone is living in fear because of the large number of casualties among civilians, one fourth of whom are children. At the end of last week, a child was killed every hour.

“We also have a humanitarian crisis: there isn’t enough water and, in some areas of Gaza, people haven’t had electricity for a week. Where I am at the moment, we haven’t had electricity for the past 37 hours and internet is down,” Mr Damo, a colleague of Karl Schembri, who worked as a journalist in Malta, said.

The charity Save the Children is calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Mr Damo noted that most of the casualties resulting from unexploded ordinance were children. When a military operation was over, children went out to play without realising there was unexploded ordnance and they ended up being injured or even killed.

One of the charity’s aims is to raise awareness among children about such risks, but the ongoing attacks disrupt humanitarian aid.

Mr Damo himself could not go out on the streets as the situation was very risky and he had to seek shelter. He said there were no underground shelters in Gaza, so people were fleeing to schools, mosques and outside hospitals.

Israel resumed its offensive after Palestinian militants fired rockets on Saturday night with warning sirens sounding across central and southern Israel.

Itai Arad, a tour operator in charge of flights from Tel Aviv to Malta, said that, over the past 10 years, 14,000 rockets targeted Israeli civilians who had between 15 and 45 seconds to run for shelter.

“Children born in 2004 celebrate not only their 10th birthday but also 10 years of sleeping in shelters and anxiety attacks; a childhood in the shadow of abnormal fear.

“A nation of only seven million people, some of whom are holocaust survivors, finds itself, over and over again, attacked merely for the fact of its existence,” Mr Arad, who has been to Malta some10 times over the past two years, said.

Mr Arad, who hopes the conflict ends in peace, says the Western media shows only what Hamas wants viewers to see.

“You won’t see any terrorist in Gaza but all you’ll see are children walking the streets in fear. You won’t see the weapons hidden under the schools and hospitals but you’ll only see that Israel is attacking those buildings.”

He added that the media was comparing the Palestinian with the Israeli death toll, often without reporting that the former was high as a result of Hamas’s action when it initiated the current rocket campaign against Israeli civilians and refused repeated ceasefire proposals.

Hamas, embracing an extremist ideology that glorified martyrdom, placed rocket launchers, missile stockpiles and other war material in civilian areas, risking civilians’ lives, in violation of international law.

And, unlike Israel, which was protecting its civilians, Hamas used all the Palestinians’ money to build rockets, launchers, tunnels and weaponry, Mr Arad said.