(Kramatorsk) At least four people were killed and 47 injured, including a Ukrainian novelist and three Colombian personalities, in a Russian strike against a popular restaurant in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine.
“Four people, including a 17-year-old girl, were killed,” the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said on Telegram. Emergency services reported 47 injuries.
“The impact caused a fire. There might be people under the rubble. The final number of victims remains to be clarified,” the prosecution said.
The strike destroyed the Ria Pizza restaurant, an establishment in the center of Kramatorsk popular with journalists and soldiers.
According to the Ukrainian police, Russia fired two S-300 surface-to-air rockets on this city which had 150,000 inhabitants before the war, and which remains the only large agglomeration still under Ukrainian control in the east of the country.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY UKRAINIAN NATIONAL POLICE, VIA REUTERS
A building badly damaged by a Russian missile attack, in the center of Kramatorsk
Three Colombian personalities, the famous writer Hector Abad, the politician Sergio Jaramillo and the journalist Catalina Gomez, correspondent in Ukraine for the daily El Tiempo, were slightly injured while eating in the restaurant with Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, according to a statement signed by MM. Abad and Jaramillo.
Seriously injured novelist
Victoria Amelima, a 37-year-old novelist whose works have been translated into English, German and several other languages, “is in critical condition, with a skull injury,” the text adds.
MM. Abad and Jaramillo were staying in eastern Ukraine to “express to the Ukrainian people the solidarity of Latin America against barbarism and the illegal invasion carried out by Russia”, explains the text, which underlines that “attacks against civilian places are an act of barbarism”.
An internationally renowned writer, Hector Abad is notably the author of The oblivion that we will bea literary success from which a film was made in 2020.
As for Mr. Jaramillo, a Colombian politician, he was one of the main negotiators of the peace agreement signed in 2016 with the Marxist guerrillas of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).
In addition to the restaurant, apartments, shops, cars, a post office and several other buildings suffered damage, according to the prosecution.
An AFP reporter at the scene of the strike saw ambulances, police, soldiers and the mayor of the city near this restaurant, in front of which a crowd of residents gathered.
A chef in a dust-covered uniform, Rouslan, 32, said there were “a lot of people” in the restaurant at the time of the strike, pointing to the sky: “I had luck “.
Natalia, a woman standing outside, said her half-brother, 23-year-old Nikita, was inside in the pizza-making area. “They can’t get it out (from the debris), it was covered. Tiles fell on him, ”she added, in tears.
Located west of Bakhmout, a devastated city that was the scene of the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, Kramatorsk has been repeatedly targeted by Russian bombardments.
The deadliest was that of Kramatorsk station, hit in April 2022, a few weeks after the start of the Russian invasion and when a crowd of civilians tried to leave the city.
This strike killed 61 and injured more than 160 of the approximately 4,000 civilians massed, a tragedy that deeply traumatized the population. Moscow had, for its part, denied any involvement.
An important railway hub, Kramatorsk is also home to military installations. It has been the de facto regional capital since the eastern cities of Donetsk and Luhansk were captured by pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow in 2014.