Russia and Ukraine: “It is very dangerous, five go to pick up a corpse and those five can die”

The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk, reported this Wednesday that Russia had agreed to a halt on fire of 12 hours in six of the areas worst affected by the fighting to allow civilians to escape. According to Vereshchuk, it is a truce that goes from the 08: 00 until 21: local time (07: 00 until 19: 00 GMT) and among the various evacuation corridors that will be opened is one from Bucha to Kiev.BBC Mundo’s dialogues with Hernán Olaya occurred before this declaration.For three days, Hernán Olaya spoke with BBC Mundo from Bucha, a city on the outskirts of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. When I spoke with him on Sunday night, I could feel the anguish in his voice. “You can’t even go out and pick up the dead that are on the street,” he told me. On Monday, also at night, we talked again and he sounded a little calmer. “Yesterday was a very hard day and you couldn’t, but today I saw some special cars that picked up people and put them in black packages. I don’t know where they are taking them, but they have been collected from the streets”. “There have been so many bombings, combats and shootings around, in the forests, that people say that there are many people lying there, but how to collect them? There is no mobility, people are very afraid of going to do that, one enters, they see him and they shoot him and that’s it.” “That is something very dangerous, five go to pick up a corpse and those five can die.” ” Nobody dares to go to those places “. Not just because of the attacks, he explained, but because they are patrolling. “At any moment there could be an ambush, the tanks come and go.” This Tuesday, at noon in Ukraine, we talked again and he told me that shots and shelling were heard until 8: 00 in the morning or so, but then everything went silent. “They have collected the victims who have been left out there,” he said. In our conversations, some interrupted by problems with the telephone line and the very unstable internet connection in his area, he insists that “ this is a catastrophe , these are deaths , displaced, there is no water, electricity, basic services”.

Roads blocked

Olaya is a petroleum engineer. He studied and lived in Moscow for six years and then went to Kiev for two years to continue his studies.

Houses destroyed by Russian army shelling in Bucha, Kiev region , in the north of Ukraine.

UKRINFORM/FUTURE PUBLISHING VIA GETTY IMAGES

There he met his wife, a Ukrainian citizen, with whom he returned to Colombia for five years. Make 20 years returned to Ukraine, where Their two children were born, who, together with their partners, are refugees in Olaya’s apartment. They are also accompanied by a family friend. “We are isolated, there is no way out, all roads are blocked by Russian soldiers.” “They also bombed two bridges and the railway station was set on fire.” “Unfortunately, this is the way the Russians chose to get all the military units to Kiev.” “They arrive in the town and, from there, they try to spread out to get closer to Kiev.”

COURTESY: HERNÁN OLAYA

He said that the city is surrounded. “During the day, (Russian soldiers) are on the outskirts, guarding all the steps and at night they enter the city, when you start to hear the shelling.” When the Russian troops return, “people are safe, everyone is locked up”, either in their homes or in shelters that have been improvised in the basements. “Usually when they come in they start shooting.” In addition, there is a curfew imposed by the Ukrainian authorities. “After 5 in the afternoon and until 8 in the morning there is a curfew because whoever goes out can be shot.”

The challenge of trying to get out

“My wife doesn’t sleep, just an hour or two. Sometimes you fall asleep, but he starts the shooting”. Although his city has been the target of attacks, he says that “miraculously” the residential complex where he lives has not suffered the ravages of the war.

“They have bombed for everything s sides, the safest part of the city is this. Why? I don’t know, even the (Russian) tanks pass by on the street in front of the house, turn around and leave. Those are miracles that one cannot explain.” “Yesterday (Sunday) some 17 units military,” he said. “Other buildings have been affected by the projectiles, but not this one. We pray that God will take care of this city, this building where we are.” He has been thinking of leaving Bucha to reach one of the borders. “I am very afraid that my family will suffer. What worries me the most is getting them out “. He said that on Sunday, some people tried to leave, but died trying. Among them was a couple with his four-year-old daughter, the only one who survived. “They managed to operate on her because shrapnel entered her head and skull. But it is necessary to get her out to Kiev so that she can receive specialized care.” “That is the reality that I want you to know. They didn’t come here to save anyone. If that was what they were proposing to save the town, what they are doing is completely destroying it.”

CHRIS MCGRATH/GETTY IMAGES

The case pointed out by Olaya could not be verified by BBC Mundo. However, human rights organizations have denounced the impact of the war on the civilian population. On March 7, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that there have been more than 1,200 civilian casualties since the war broke out. That figure includes at least 200 dead and 801 wounded. Russia denies that its troops attack civilians. “There are people who walk day and night, but now it is very dangerous to do so because they simply go out on the main roads and if they are given the opportunity, because they have mined a lot of the forests, the lateral parts of the roads, so that nobody get in there,” Olaya said. “I feel pain to see that our soldiers are dying defending their country, many young (Russian) soldiers have arrived who do not even know what war is and have been sent here”.

“They are lives cut short. They tell them that this country must be liberated because there are Nazis, that they must help. That information is not real. “If this is called liberation, I don’t know anything about life.” “One makes you want to cry, this was a very nice, quiet city. Now one sees burned cars, projectiles, destroyed roofs of houses, buildings that have lost part of their structure, others are empty, bombed tanks that have been left on the roads.” “Our soldiers are outside because a lot of tanks have arrived, a lot of Russian soldiers.” “Many Russians arrive and are looking for food , they did not come prepared for so many days. They go into the warehouses and take out the food.”

Solidarity

Olaya has intestinal cancer and used to receive chemotherapy twice a month. “Right now there is no chance of that.”

“I have a tumor that has affected my urinary canal and blocks my left kidney.” On Monday, in a first aid unit that was opened in a school in front of the building where he lives, a neighbor who is a doctor, a urologist and an assistant – both also from the urbanization – performed a small intervention on him. “I had a catheter, but it had to be sewn because it was falling out. The kidney is still obstructed , but because of the catheter one is undone”. And so, the urine reaches a small bag. That is an example of the solidarity that, he stressed, has developed among all members of the community. “We made a list of the people in the building who work in medicine. They left their phone numbers, and although they don’t always work, we know where we can reach them.”

“It’s like going back to the Stone Age”

Despite the difficulties in finding food, he said that “whoever has a product shares it.”