In the south of Ukraine, about thirty kilometers from the front, Mykolaiv, emptied of half of its inhabitants, is regularly the target of rocket and missile fire. Another difficulty, running water has been cut since mid-April when the pipes from the Dnieper were damaged by Russian fire. City authorities are working to bring water back to homes, but it’s taking time.
With our special correspondents in Mykolaiv, Anastasia Becchio and Boris Vichith
Dozens of people line up in front of a tanker truck that has just arrived in a building courtyard. Vlad, 28, a former sailor, took 11 cans. This should be enough for him for 4 or 5 days. ” I hope there will be more, if not, we will have to go further, he says. We do all this on foot, as there is no fuel for the car. It makes us exercise! They say the water will come back, but what the quality will be, we don’t know. »
Without the possibility of repairing the pipes destroyed by the Russian fire, the local authorities opened wells to the public and brought in water from the southern Bug, the river which flows on the peninsula. The Black Sea being only a few kilometers downstream, the water there is salty and must be treated.
Ration your consumption
For two days, some residents have seen water reappear in their taps, for a few minutes or a few hours. This is the case of this young couple in whose house water cans accumulate in the entrance. ” We fill up said Yulia, smiling as she opened the door. In the bathroom, Sacha fills basins and buckets with yellow water that will be used for the dishes and the toilet: “ Since we have three cans of drinking water, with this water, it allows us not to think about the water supply for two or three days. If we had at least one hour of water a day, that would be quite a lot. »
Without running water for more than a month, Ioulia has learned to ration her consumption, but she puts things into perspective: “ We don’t think about it too much, because, my God, it’s not the biggest problem in our world. We are alive, healthy and above all, we are together and that is wonderful. »
Despite the difficulties of daily life, the aerial alerts that punctuate their lives, Ioulia and Sacha keep their spirits up and have no intention of leaving their town.
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