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As of April 23, more than 5 million Ukrainians have already fled the war in their country. But there are also those who just can’t or won’t leave. In the Donbass, our special envoys went alongside residents holed up in the basement of a theater.
Wherever you look in Rubizhne (Ukraine), there are columns of black smoke after the impacts of shells. In the streets, the tanks roll at high speed. Affected by the bombardments, the theater is still standing. There are about ten of them living in the basement of the building, by candlelight and with a few tin cans. They are neighbors, because the theater staff has left. In the backyard, a neighbor mown down by a shell was buried. A theater like in Mariupol, but here no one has heard of the tragedy.
In Roubizhne, the shootings are incessant. A cellar has been transformed into a shelter. Six children are refugees there. One of the girls celebrated her 8th birthday in this cellar. Her 18-month-old baby brother sleeps in a nearby cellar. “We survive. But going out for him is too dangerous”, says his father. At the end of the corridor, the light that the children no longer see and, on the surface, still columns of smoke. But Rubizhne did not fall.