Ukraine: Debaltseve escapees fear battle will derail truce

At the end of a platform at Slovyansk railway station, Tatyana welcomed guests to her new home: an ageing sleeping car, red-and-cream beneath thick grime, which she shares with dozens of fellow Ukrainians from the ruined town of Debaltseve.

“I worked for 35 years as a nurse and now I’m left with nothing. I have what you see here,” said Tatyana (65), whose neat grey outfit belied the fact that she now lives from a few bags gathered around her in the carriage.

“We escaped Debaltseve on February 8th on probably the last bus to leave. And now we’re here,” Tatyana said, looking out through the wagon’s yellowish-brown windows towards the frost-covered outskirts of Slovyansk.

“At least it’s warm and quiet at night, and there are no drunks in our carriage. But there’s no electricity, and I have to wash my clothes in the sink in the toilet cubicle. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.”

Tatyana is here with husband Mikhail (67) and daughter Irina, who is in her forties. Irina is already looking for a way for them to move from Slovyansk – which, like Debaltseve, is in the Donetsk region – to neighbouring Kharkiv province.

“Officially Debaltseve is controlled by the government, not the militants, so they give us no benefits here,” said Irina, who shares her mother’s determined air. “In Kharkiv they are paying something, so we’ll try to go there.”

Deeper conflict

The question of who controls Debaltseve threatens to destroy the nascent ceasefire in

Ukraine

, pitch the country into deeper conflict and further poison relations between Kiev’s allies in the West and a Russia that backs the separatists.

The truce was on the verge of collapse last night, as Kiev and the insurgents threatened not to pull back heavy artillery as planned due to fighting at Debaltseve and other flashpoints. Ukraine’s military said the rebels had killed five soldiers and injured 25 since the ceasefire was due to start overnight from Saturday to Sunday.

Most of Debaltseve’s 25,000 residents fled as the fight for the major transport hub intensified, but thousands are still trapped in basements and only venture out briefly for provisions and to call relatives when artillery salvos subside.

“A friend called yesterday,” said Tatyana, “and told us the whole street had been destroyed. There are bodies lying in people’s yards and no one to collect or bury them. And anyway the cemeteries have been mined.”

In Svyatohirsk, a resort north of Slovyansk, Maxim, who worked as a fireman at the rail depot before fleeing with wife and child, said that rebels and government troops held different parts of Debaltseve.

“A colleague just called and told me the national guard controls the area around the railway station, but the militants have other areas,” he said .

Now his family is staying at the Pearl of Donetsk sanatorium, a refuge for about 360 people from Debaltseve that usually serves as a children’s summer holiday camp. Sunny murals cover the walls and bright flags fly in the yard, but now they twist in a snowy wind that gusts through the surrounding forest of silver birch.

“There’s no electricity in Debaltseve, no heat or light, and it’s too dangerous now for people to be evacuated,” said Maxim. “Our building was hit by missiles and destroyed. We’re homeless. When the bus came, we just grabbed what we could and ran. We are being fed and clothed by volunteers.”

He said the militants had stolen a truck from his fire station and that looting “by both sides” was rife in Debaltseve. Fellow new residents of the Pearl of Donetsk talked of theft, drunkenness and random violence by both sides.

“For 21 years I worked at the technical school in Debaltseve, teaching children about peace. Now the town is in flames,” said Tatyana Nosko. “We had our house for two generations. We had a plasma television and a normal television and a washing machine – expensive things. Now we have nothing.”

Her friend Valentina Antonova said: “On both sides adults are acting like kids, destroying everything. The world should do something to enforce a proper ceasefire; now it’s no better in Debaltseve than before the ‘truce’ – it’s probably even worse.

“Suddenly we have no past or future. Where can I go at 60 years of age? These clothes are all I have, and they are from charity.”

Medical aid group Médecins Sans Frontières had its first mobile clinic at the Pearl of Donetsk yesterday, led by Pakistani doctor Muhammad Zahir Kahn.

Trauma

“We are seeing respiratory infections linked to the time people spent in basements,” he said. “We also see signs of psychological trauma and are offering counselling clinics.”

Ukraine’s conflict has killed more than 5,400 people and driven more than one million from their homes.

“We don’t care who is our president. We all hope and pray for peace,” said Viktoria, a pensioner who fled to Svyatohirsk from Yenakiieve and now helps out as a volunteer. “You work like a horse all your life only to suddenly lose everything. We used to dream and make plans; now we’re happy just to survive to the end of the day.”