How to protect yourself if armed conflict breaks out

Preparing for armed conflict is not imagining the worst: it is turning something that leaves no time to think into a handful of decisions made in advance. The people who come through a war best are not the bravest or the best stocked, but the ones who had already answered three questions: where do I shelter, what do I take if I have to leave and how do I find my people again.

Sirens: learn yours in advance

There is no universal siren code. Every country uses its own, and confusing them costs minutes you do not have. What does repeat almost everywhere is the logic: a rising and falling tone means alert and take shelter now; a steady, flat tone is usually the all-clear.

Look up today what the convention is where you live — civil protection, the fire service or the interior ministry publish it — and tell everyone in the house. If your area also uses mobile alerts, switch them on: that is the warning that reaches you indoors, where the street is not always audible.

Where to shelter: the wall rule

Most civilian injuries in a bombardment are not caused by the direct hit but by fragments and, above all, by glass. Protection is measured in walls and in distance from windows.

Place	Protection	When to choose it
Marked public shelter	Very high	Whenever you can reach it within the warning time
Basement with two exits	Very high	First choice inside the building
Interior hallway, no windows	Medium-high	When there is no basement, or no time
Interior ground-floor room	Medium	Reasonable alternative at home
Any room with a window	Low	Never, while another option exists
Top floor, attic, roof	Very low	Never

The practical rule is simple: two walls between you and the street. The first stops fragments, the second stops whatever gets through the first. Sit on the floor, away from glass, close to a load-bearing wall and not under shelves or heavy frames.

Shelter or evacuate: not the same decision

These are two different answers to two different situations, and mixing them up is what gets people killed.

1. Active fighting or bombardment under way: shelter. The street is the worst possible place. Moving during an attack multiplies exposure.
2. Official evacuation order with an announced route: leave now. Humanitarian corridors have short, negotiated time windows. Leaving by another route or at another hour means leaving without any of the guarantees that make the corridor exist.
3. No order, but rising risk and an open route: decide while calm. Leaving early on a clear road always beats leaving late in a column of people. If you are unsure, the variable to watch is not fear: it is whether the route still has fuel, passage and daylight.

Documents are survival equipment

It sounds bureaucratic until it happens: without papers there is no border crossing, no registration for assistance, no property claim and no family reunification. Prepare two copies: one digital, encrypted, in the cloud, and one on paper in a waterproof bag inside your go-bag.

• ID for every family member, children included.
• Birth certificates and family record book or equivalent.
• Deeds, lease or any proof of address.
• Medical records, prescriptions and allergy list.
• Recent photographs of each child, with name and date of birth written on the back.

What protects you by law, even when it seems not to

International humanitarian law is not an abstract ideal: it defines concrete signs worth recognising on the ground.

• The blue triangle on an orange background identifies civil protection staff, buildings and shelters.
• The red cross, red crescent and red crystal identify medical and humanitarian services. Attacking anything bearing them is a war crime.
• Hospitals, ambulances, schools and objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population — drinking water, crops — have specific protection.

Knowing this serves two practical purposes: recognising who you can turn to, and documenting what you see. If you witness an attack on a protected target, note date, time and place; that record has value afterwards.

After the front moves: what stays on the ground

The danger does not end with the fighting. Explosive remnants of war — unexploded ordnance, submunitions, mines — keep killing for years, and the most frequent victims are children and people returning home.

• Do not touch unfamiliar metal objects on the ground, however harmless they look. Many submunitions are small and brightly coloured.
• Do not enter damaged buildings until they have been cleared: there is risk both of collapse and of ordnance inside.
• Return by used, paved roads. Shortcuts and fields are where the risk concentrates.
• Teach children with a drawing, not a generic warning. “If you see it, don’t touch it, walk away, tell an adult.”

Manuals in this section

• What to do when an alert siren sounds
• The go-bag for armed conflict
• How to protect yourself from an explosion at home

If what worries you is a nearby nuclear installation, the answer is different and lives in nuclear accident; if you are looking for what to do about a detonation, it is in nuclear explosion.