Along Ukraine front, the villagers who didn’t leave are ghosts in the wasteland

• The village of Mala Tokmachka is located in Ukrainian-held territory.
• It is just a few kilometres from the frontline in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.
• Only about 500 of the 2,500 people who lived here before the war remain.

Ukraine, MALA TOKMACHKA July 22- The majority of people have long since left the village of Mala Tokmachka, which is located in Ukrainian-held territory just a few kilometres from the frontline in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.

But not Anna, a lanky 25-year-old army veteran with close-cropped hair who has nowhere to go.

“I am a member of the military. I’ve always worn a pistol around my waist. “We must hold on, fear or no fear,” she told Reuters, explaining her decision to stay. “My husband used to be in the military as well, but he is now paralysed.” “Where would I take a paralysed man?”

Anna rattles off a list of things that no one has around here anymore.

“There is no electricity, no water, and no gas,” she says. There are no stores or kiosks.

“I’m not sure how people have survived here for four months.” We’re doing our best to hang on.”

Five months after Russia’s invasion, life has mostly returned to normal in Kyiv and other northern cities where Russian forces were driven out.

Advertisement

Also Read

USAID pledges Kenya $255 mln to fight drought, appeals to rich countries to help

The funding commitment is in addition to the $65 million already provided...

Advertisement

A hot war is raging further east, in the active battle zone of the Donbas, with Ukrainians fleeing towns and cities in the path of Russia’s ferocious advance.

However, countless ghost villages like Mala Tokmachka can be found along a much longer stretch of hundreds of kilometres of frontline that winds through the south and east.

Armies are not attempting to push through here, though shells from Russian positions captured early in the conflict continue to land on occasion. Only about 500 of the 2,500 people who lived here before the war remain.

Advertisement

Also Read

‘The Crown’ to include ‘what we now know about’ Diana’s Panorama interview

Princess Diana's 1995 interview with Martin Bashir will be dramatised in season...

Advertisement

No one is tending the fields, no one is looking after the old shops, and no one is removing the furniture and torn clothing from the ruins of abandoned homes. A community of people continues to exist, like ghosts in the wasteland.

“Farmers are unable to harvest their crops.” I work in agriculture myself. And looking at the fields is excruciating. But what is one to do? People are terrified of going to the fields. “People do not harvest crops even near their own homes,” Mykola Skarupilo, 67, explained.

He, too, will not be leaving. He has an elderly mother who refuses to accompany him.

“I grew accustomed to it. “If my mother says she will not leave, why should her son be afraid to stay?” he asked. “I was born here, and I will die here, but I will not leave.”