In Ukraine, the noose is loosening around Kharkiv. There is less bombardment around the country’s second city, but the inhabitants, whose homes were destroyed by the war, remain in their hundreds taking refuge in the metro. They are often the most precarious, who have nowhere to go.
With our special correspondents in Kharkiv, Murielle Paradon and Sami Boukhelifa
Sitting on a mattress with her small dog, Elena, 49, watches a video of her family on her mobile phone, crying.
It’s her birthday today, and she misses her children. They have gone abroad, but for her part, she has to stay in Kharkiv, because her own parents are stuck in a village occupied by the Russians.
I can’t leave my parents. If I left them, it wouldn’t be right. I’ll be really happy when we’re all together.
Elena and most of her companions in misfortune stay in the subway, despite the crowding, because they don’t know where to go. Their accommodation was destroyed by the bombardments. This is the case of her neighbor, who has been living in a subway car for two and a half months.
We no longer have an apartment, it has completely burned down. And since we no longer have a job, we have no money to rent another accommodation.
It is the most precarious who stay in the metro. Some are in poor health, like Zoya, 75. ” It’s too noisy, crowded and not enough air here “, she confides.
Zoya has decided to go home, even though her apartment no longer has windows. As she gathers her things, she cracks up: “ I want to ask Putin, why is he doing this to us ? »
The old lady is exhausted. Like many here, they have been living underground for almost three months.
►To re-read: In the Kharkiv morgue, the bodies of Russian soldiers sent to Moscow