Evacuation of children from hot spots near Pokrovsk: police rescue people under constant shelling in Kurakhivska community

In times of war, the evacuation of children from a combat zone is an extremely important task that requires enormous effort and risk on the part of the police, rescue services and humanitarian organizations. Ensuring the safety of the most vulnerable sections of the population — children — is not only a moral obligation, but also a key aspect of preserving the country’s future. However, evacuation does not always go smoothly: some parents, due to fear, misinformation or hope for a miracle, refuse to leave dangerous areas, thereby putting their children at risk. This situation is extremely difficult, especially in regions that are under constant shelling.

On September 16, the head of the Kurakhiv military-civilian administration, Roman Padun, reported that the community had successfully evacuated all children, and no minors remained on the territory. However, the following week, the local police, for whom the evacuation of the civilian population has become a priority since the beginning of September, reported the evacuation of three more families, including seven children.

How is it that official statements change in a few days? “Glavkom” did reportage from the scene of the events, for several days the journalist accompanied Kurakhiv policemen during evacuation trips.

What is the report about

The police and charitable organizations are constantly fighting to save children who remain at risk of enemy shelling. The offensive in the Pokrovsk direction continues, and the Kurakhiv community, which is located between Pokrovsk and Vugledar, is becoming more and more deserted. Since September, Russian shelling has intensified significantly and can now be repeated several times a day. The Russian Federation uses various types of weapons, including missiles, artillery and guided aerial bombs, which pose a constant threat to civilians.

People escape as best they can: some leave on their own, others – with the help of humanitarian organizations. However, as in other communities of Donetsk region, there remains a part of people who refuse to leave their homes even under constant threat. And although adults can knowingly risk their own lives, the situation is different with children. The local administration and the police are doing everything possible to evacuate children whose parents leave them in dangerous conditions under shelling.

Kurakhovo police say that the task of evacuating all children in the community was set in mid-August this year, when it became clear that the Russian offensive on Pokrovsk posed a threat to the community. The police began to visit all the addresses where the children were registered, for whom there was no information about their departure. They tried to persuade parents to leave the dangerous territory, offering free evacuation and accommodation in safer regions of Ukraine.

However, even then it became clear that the work would not be easy. Russian disinformation continued to actively operate in the region. Many months of power outages in the villages of the community and the mining village of Kurakhivka, as well as the destruction of the radio tower by the Russians at the end of June of this year, made it much more difficult for local residents to access true information. The main source of information was mobile phones, which were charged from generators in communal “points of unbreakability”. However, there is a nuance here: what do people read on their phones? Mostly it is Telegram, where there are many channels that spread Russian propaganda.

Not all such channels are openly anti-Ukrainian, but there is enough propaganda there. As a result, disinformation began to work – some parents hid their children during police raids, shouting that the police wanted to take them “for the organs”. These dramatic conversations could be seen both on recordings from police cameras and in reality during an evacuation raid on a family with two boys in Kurakhivka. In each of these cases, the children were removed thanks to relatives who informed the police about their whereabouts. The police convinced the parents to let their children go to safe places – to other regions of Ukraine.

Sometimes the parents resorted to another tactic: they claimed that the children had already been evacuated, while they hid them either at home or with neighbors. For example, once a father, whose family was evacuated at the end of last year, hid his children and his wife under sofas and in a closet. The family returned to Hirnyk after the father could not find work. Fearing that the children would be separated from their parents as part of the forced evacuation, the family decided to hide them. This is another example of the influence of Russian disinformation.

There was also a case when police officer Kostyantyn Tunytskyi received information about a family hiding three children in the basement. Even when the policeman climbed over the gate and entered the house, the father assured that the mother and the children had gone to Cherkasy. However, the police discovered the entrance to the basement, on which there was a chair with things on top. When they went downstairs, the police saw the children and their mother. At that time, heavy shelling of Hirnyk began, which helped convince the family to leave the community.

The police said that they would not leave without this family, because the city is under constant threat: there are no more pharmacies, a trip to the store can be deadly, and an ambulance or fire service may not arrive in time. The father had to come to terms with the idea that it would be dangerous to stay, and he decided to evacuate.

The death threat was no exaggeration. On August 28, a Russian controlled aerial bomb dropped on the village of Izmailivka, neighboring Hirnyk, destroyed a house and killed four people, including a seventeen-year-old boy.

“There was a case when I had information about a family hiding three children in the basement, and even when I climbed over the gate and entered the house, the father assured me that the mother and the children had left for Cherkasy. 

The policemen noticed the entrance to the basement, on the edge of which stood a chair with things thrown from above, and when they went down, they saw the children and their mother. Heavy shelling of Hirnyk, which began at that time, helped convince the family to leave.

We said that we will not go without them, the city is in danger, there are no more pharmacies, the trip to the store may be the last, and the ambulance or fire engine may simply not make it, and the father will have to live with the feeling of guilt.” – says community police officer Kostyantyn Tunytskyi.

At the Kurakhiv police station, officer Tunytskyi is responsible for the city of Hirnyk. He says that in difficult cases, information about children who remain in the community comes from third parties. In most cases, children are reported by caring people who trust the police, or the police receive information from schools if a child does not attend school. After that, the police conduct checks, establish the family’s communication circle and find the children.

Given the proximity to the front line, children in the Kurakhiv community have been studying online since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. According to the local education department, about two and a half thousand students are registered for online education. Most of them have already left for safer regions, where they continue their studies remotely from other cities, such as Dnipro, or even from abroad. However, due to constant shelling in the community, there are power outages and an almost complete absence of the Internet, so it is quite easy for educators to “calculate” the children who are likely to remain in the community. However, it is necessary to establish a circle of communication between families, since children are often buried not at home, but with relatives or acquaintances.

Tunitsky notes that parents or guardians who hide children from evacuation can be divided into two categories: those who hope that the war will pass them by and they can wait at home, and those who are waiting for the arrival of the Russians.

From the experience of working in neighboring communities, police officers know that representatives of both categories can change their decision about the need to evacuate if the situation worsens sharply. Currently, 10 to 15 houses are destroyed or destroyed in the Kurakhiv community every day due to shelling, so some residents finally decide to flee.

At the end of September, the police escorted Tunytskyi during the evacuation of a single father with his minor son from Hirnyk. A man asked for help after a nearby house was destroyed by artillery fire. He called the police a few minutes after the “arrival”. The officers were not surprised by the call, although this man had convinced the police two weeks ago that he and his son had already left.

Since mid-September, the police no longer risk entering dangerous areas, so the father and son were offered a meeting point a few hundred meters from their house. At first, the man insisted that he be taken from the very threshold, but after negotiations he agreed to go to the specified place.

When they arrived at the meeting place, they were accompanied by a neighbor who lent them her cart to transport things. She was followed by a thin and sick Alabai. The woman said that there have been no veterinarians and veterinary pharmacies in the city for a long time, so no one can treat the dog. However, she is not going to leave – she is afraid that with such a big dog she will not be accepted in a shelter. She helped her neighbors pack things into the evacuation minibus and said goodbye, returning home to the gray area.

In Kurakhovo, evacuees are housed in the city’s cultural center, where a shelter has been set up. There, residents are waiting for an evacuation bus from one of the charitable organizations with which the Kurakhovo police cooperate. The waiting time is usually one or two days. Usually, people from the community are taken away by representatives of the Protestant church “People are more expensive than gold” and the interfaith organization “Chaplain patrol”. In addition to evacuation, they offer shelters to those in need.

A minibus from “People are more expensive than gold” arrived in Kurakhovo the day after the father and son left Girnyk. That day, Kurakhove came under fire again, and the walls of the city’s cultural center shook from explosions somewhere nearby. This time, the evacuation minibus took two families with children, one of whom the police brought from the village of Dachne just a few minutes before departure. The parents of three children, the youngest of whom is only five years old, decided to seek help in the evacuation on their own. They hesitated to the last, because they did not know where to go, and agreed to go only after they were offered a settlement in a new place. Among the things the family took with them were school supplies and a tablet for online learning.

The bus was heading to Pokrovsk, where the evacuees were to be transferred to a larger vehicle. People from all over Pokrovsky district have already gathered there. They were taken to the Dnipro, where those in need were able to find shelter in a place provided by the “People are more expensive than gold” church. At the entrance to Pokrovsk, the driver and his partner put on helmets, as they had to drive through a particularly dangerous section of the road. At the entrance to the city, a column of smoke was visible – the city was shelled again a few minutes ago. The section of the road became calm only after the bus crossed the border of the Donetsk region.

However, despite all the efforts of the police and volunteers, at the end of September it was not possible to evacuate all minors from the Kurakhiv community. According to Kostyantyn Tunytskyi, there were three children left in Hirnyk, about whom it was definitely known. At the same time, it was estimated that the total number of children in the town could reach up to 15. Neither the police nor the administration can name the exact number of children in the territory of the community — estimates vary within a few dozen. It is very difficult to find children who are hidden by adults, but the police continue to do everything possible to save them.