In Chassiv Yar, the difficult search after the bombing of a building

At her window, which no longer has a pane, Nadiedjda begins to sing a patriotic song.
To enter what remains of his apartment, in this residential area of ​​Chassiv Yar, you have to pass through tons of rubble. The front door no longer holds on its hinges. Her husband is just behind, lying on the floor, his face full of bruises. This couple, like other residents of Chassiv Yar, was literally “soufflé” by the explosion.

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The damage is considerable and the inhabitants stunned in this district of Chassiv Yar, in the Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine. A five-storey apartment building was hit on Sunday July 10 by a Russian airstrike. The toll grew day by day. The emergency services announced 45 dead on Wednesday. They are civilians, but also soldiers. The search is complicated in the 400 tons of debris, because the fighting is raging right next to it. Since the start of the Russian invasion at the end of February 2022, more than 5,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which estimates that this toll is “probably much higher”.

Nadiedjda, she saw “corpses and body parts taken from the rubble and put in plastic bags”. To describe this scene, she speaks of a “real massacre”. “Among these dead many civilians, including a child, but also soldierspoints out Nadiedjda. They were young and there were a lot of them.” This information, which has not been confirmed by the Ukrainian authorities, is relayed by numerous witnesses, including rescuers. The latter now have little hope of finding survivors.

The task of the rescuers is complicated by the many artillery fires nearby. Chassiv Yar is near the front, where the fighting has been intense for several days. Explosions echo in the distance. “Indeed, what we hear are Russian and Ukrainian shots. But to tell the truth, we have almost no chance of finding survivors. It would take a miracle”laments an army rescuer.

A total of nine people were saved. Bodily damage is important, but it is not the only consequences. The psyche is dramatically affected, like Nadiedjda and her husband.