Reconstruction of the village where 400 were held captive

Now life begins to return to the village where hundreds of residents were held captive in a basement for several weeks.

On a wall in the school building, names are lined up. These are the names of those who died when they were held captive in the school basement for almost a month by Russian soldiers.

It was at the beginning of the war that the Russians took the village of Yahidne, north of Kyiv, and forced almost all the inhabitants, about 400, down into the school basement. There, the prisoners were held as human shields while the Russians used the school as a military base. Only on a couple of occasions did some of the villagers have to leave the dark, overcrowded basement to bury the dead, among other things. They barely got food and water and used buckets as toilets. Among those trapped were about sixty children. According to residents, ten people died in the basement due to the difficult conditions.

The school is untouched

Now the residents of Yahidne are getting help from volunteers, both foreign and from other parts of the country, to build the houses in the village.

– We want to do something meaningful instead of just being tourists, says Daniel Kahle, who together with his father has come from the Czech Republic to help with the reconstruction during the holidays.

But no one has so far started rebuilding the school building. The villagers prefer not to mention it.