At the Pokrovsk railway station, in the heart of the Donbass, Nadiya travels with a small suitcase and a backpack. “People take what they need with them. I draw. So I took all my equipment with me,” says the young girl. They left their apartment in Kramatorsk in the Donbass with their mother Olena that same morning. “We were afraid of the bombings. It’s hard to explain… It’s a constant feeling of dread that wouldn’t let me go.”
On the platform, Irina Serjiouk, the manager of this station, which is about forty kilometers from the front, watches as the only train of the day finally leaves the Donbass. “As long as the last one isn’t gone, we’ll stay there,” she says. The pace of evacuations has accelerated since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the evacuation of the Donetsk region ten days ago. In all, more than 3,000 residents of this Russian-bombed region in the east of the country fled to the west of the country, most of them by train.
“Zelensky’s assignment works. The number of evacuees increases every day. They are about 30% more than in the past few weeks. And I think it will continue to increase little by little. People are leaving.”
Irina Serzhiuk, station manager in Pokrovsk
at franceinfo
“Today there were 400 people. We used to have six wagons to Lemberg, now there are twelve. Half of them go to Kropivnitsky. We will have problems with the heating. That’s why they have to go,” she explains.
And yet Pokrovsk is a city that is still very much alive. Passers-by, a bit of traffic and a few open shops like Marina’s little shop that doesn’t want to leave. “This is my area, I’ve lived there all my life, I can’t give it up. i want to stay there I live in a house. I have a stove, I bought coal, bombings of course, but still it’s dangerous everywhere in Ukraine and there are no safety guarantees anywhere,” she stresses.
The government cannot force them to leave Donbass. On the other hand, he will be required to sign a discharge to be sent to the regional authorities as soon as possible.
Ukraine: Residents of Donbass flee – Report by Thibault Lefèvre and Eric Audra
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