Aza Chabieva lost her husband five years ago during conflict in Chechnya. She has two children, a ten year old daughter Amina and a six year old son Adam, but she is also looking after other kids at the temporary accommodation centre where she and her two sisters live.

They all lived with their mother lived in a tented camp for refugees after the war started ,in Ingushetia. Their only brother died in 1997 from the wounds he had received during the bombings of Grozny a few years earlier. He was 21.

Then Aza’s mother was diagnosed with cancer. They had to sell the only property they ever had – a small plot of land, to pay the medical bills but this did not save her. She died in 2004.

Aza's sisters husband was also lost in the war.

Across this volatile region, women have lost husbands, brothers and children through conflict. For International Women's Day, World Vision pays tribute to these women's stories of struggle and survival to raise their children against the odds. Text and photos by WV MEER national office communications staff