We meet Vladislav Bilonojko at the end of a flooded street in Kherson, southern Ukraine. In normal times, the Dnipro flows 500 meters further but, since the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, it is here that the Zodiacs disembark to bring back the inhabitants of the evacuated districts. When they can because the area is bombed daily.
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Exchanges of artillery fire have not calmed down over the past three days despite the danger threatening the victims. Vladislav is the head of the rescue divers in Kherson, and in the back of the fire truck where he is taking a break, he looks physically and morally exhausted. “On the first day, the water was rising very quickly. We were intervening around the islands in the middle of the Dnipro, and we found ourselves under shellfire, three or four in a row, he says. They were shooting at rescuers trying to evacuate people! Two police officers who were with us were injured by shrapnel.”
While Vladislav is talking to us, a first explosion sounds. She announces others. A few minutes later, a series of Russian artillery strikes targeted relief operations a few hundred meters away. They left one dead and 18 injured, including several rescuers.
“These terrorists do not let us work normally”
In the middle of this chaos, there is Valentina. She is 82 years old and has just been evacuated from the building where she has lived all her life, in the flooded district of Ostriv. The water rose to the first floor. Valentina and her son waited two days before seeing a rescue boat arrive.
“They shell us day and night. There are two or three hour breaks, and then they start shelling again.”
Valentina, an 82-year-old disaster victimat BlazeTrends
“It’s the Russians, from the left bank. These Russians, we will never be brothers with them, neither by blood nor by mother!”storms the octogenarian.
And it is not Vladislav the rescuer who will deny it. For three days he has lived in frustration at not being able to rescue the Ukrainians trapped on the other side of the river. “Our biggest problem is the left bank of the Dnipro: the Russian occupiers are not evacuating the victims. Many elderly people and children need help. Our soldiers do everything they can to save them, but they get shot because these terrorists don’t let us work normally.”
Risking one’s life under the bombs, to save that of others… the task is particularly arduous for the rescuers of the Kherson region. Yet the work continues: 2,340 people have been evacuated from the waters of the Dnipro in the past three days.