They feel it’s hard to leave and expensive to start anew elsewhere. There are no safe places, they said, and Kramatorsk is home. A small merry-go-round spins.ĭmytro and Karyna Ponomarenko wait for their daughter, nearly 5-year-old Anhelina, along with her pink bike with training wheels. He finds it uncomfortable that some people who should be evacuating see his presence as a reassuring reason to stay.Īs the latest air raid siren wails at a Kramatorsk playground and artillery booms, a girl in pigtails squeals and runs from the determined chase of a little boy. Vitalii Malanchuk said a “quite high” number of children are patients at the hospital. “They’re kids,” he said, with the same gruffness he uses to call the entire war “nonsense.”ĭr. It is unknown how many remain as the Russians press their offensive in the region. What’s jarring, however, is to see children - even a baby stroller - near the front line. It’s not unusual for older residents of eastern Ukraine to refuse to heed calls to evacuate to safer places elsewhere in the country. It’s doesn’t make sense to escape,” said Tania’s father, Oleksandr Rokytianskyi.Ĭhatting to herself while settling in with a lavish box of colored markers, Tania added, “Bang, bang!” In the shade near the now-closed station, they enjoy whatever quiet remains between the booms of outgoing artillery trying to keep out Russian forces. Tania and her parents aren’t afraid to stay. The remnants of a rocket from that attack bore the inscription in Russian: “For the children.” She sits on a bench only steps away from the city’s train station that was attacked by Russia in April, killing more than 50 people who had gathered there to evacuate. Six-year-old Tania has no more playmates left on her street in the eastern Ukraine city of Kramatorsk.
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) - The children flicker like ghosts on the empty playgrounds in weedy courtyards deep in a city whose residents have been told to get out now.
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