NOS
–
NOS News•yesterday, 21:25
–
-
—
Kysia Hekster
Correspondent European Union
—
-
—
Kysia Hekster
Correspondent European Union
—
—
The elderly, young families with children and pets, they all stand in front of the gates to the platform. There is the evacuation train that should bring them from Pokrovsk to safety. Away from the war in the eastern Donbas, towards the safer west of the country. The tension can be read on their faces. They’re leaving now, but will they ever come back?
–
Ukrainian President Zelensky last week ordered the mandatory evacuation of Ukrainians remaining in the Donbas. It is estimated that more than 200,000 people still live there, despite the fighting with the Russian army and the frontline getting closer.
–
Winter will start in a few months, and the heating will probably not work. The fewer people left in the Donbas the better, the president said. At least then the Russians can’t kill them.
–
‘I don’t even know where we’re going now’
As soon as the gates open, people flock onto the platform. “I’m from Soledar,” says Maria. She is waiting with her son and her in-laws until she can board the train. “Our house was under fire from the Russians. All around us we could hear the artillery, the bombs were flying around us.” She bursts into tears. “We had to leave everything behind, I don’t even know where we’re going now.”
–
A little further on, Svetlana is standing in a traditional Ukrainian floral dress, together with her son. “My husband fights at the front,” she begins. She’s clearly trying her best to sound cheerful. But then she also fills up. “We have to save our children,” she says as she wraps her arms around her son and looks the other way before they both get in. They have two suitcases with them, that’s all.
–
–
NOS
–
People try to get a seat on the evacuation train, at Pokrovsk . station –
Mayor Ruslan Trebushkin of Pokrovsk is also at the station. He is very concerned. “We have information that the Russians have plans for large-scale artillery shelling. That leads to a lot of deaths. And the Russians do not distinguish between soldiers, civilians, elderly or women. So it is better that everyone who can go now and stay alive. And then, God willing, come back after the war.”
–
Trebushkin says that this is already the third evacuation wave. “The first was at the beginning of the war, the second a little later. But many people have already returned.” According to the mayor, people who had fled often did not find work and therefore returned home.
–
“They couldn’t afford to be on the run any longer. Those people don’t want to leave. They say it’s still relatively quiet now, that rockets only come down once a week. Apparently the violence is used.”
–
Evacuation train
About 2,000 residents of the Donbas have left in the first week of the mandatory evacuation, reports the Ukrainian government. They used the evacuation train that runs every other day from Pokrovsk via Dnipro to Lviv, in the west of the country. The government promises the people who leave everything behind, shelter in three more central regions of the country and a monthly allowance to live on.
–
People who do not comply with the evacuation obligation and want to stay at home must sign a paper stating that they realize that they are responsible for what is happening.
–
Not everyone leaves, like 66-year-old Stepan, who lives in a village in the Donbas:
–
video-player">
–
‘I stay here to fight or die here’
—-
-
