“Evacuating children from basements”
I asked my cousin to tell me a story that would provoke a reaction because the fundraiser is barely breathing. Something sad, funny, or scary.
He chose scary and sad.
I had never heard of these events.
In the summer of 2022, he and several of his teammates were in the east, near Avdiivka. My cousin himself was wounded; his knees were swollen, and his other comrades were also injured; one of them lost his eye because of the injury.
They were waiting at the stabilization point to be taken out and sent to hospitals. At the stabilization point, they were given anesthetics and waited.
After some time, they received information, while still at the stabilization center, that there were children in the basements who were being prepared by the Russians to be sent to Russia. So, they went to clear the basements and rescue the children.
In total, six people participated in the operation.
There were children in the basements. Some of them had barcodes on their bodies or tattooed numbers like prisoners (I don't really understand what exactly he meant by barcodes, but the point is that children were marked).
The youngest girl was 7 years old. There were both girls and boys there. After AFU soldiers took the children away, the boys were washed by adult men together with my brother, and the girls were washed by female doctors.
For some time, these children lived with the soldiers and doctors.
My brother told this story to my mother, and his mother said that if some children had nowhere else to go, she would take them and become their caregiver.
From the first operation, the military brought back 12 children. There were murdered children in the basements. Raped and tortured. Will their bodies ever be buried as each of us deserves? Or will those basements blow up and the traces of these crimes be unearthed by archaeologists in tens or hundreds of years?
He also said that the children were kept in such conditions that “pigs have a better life.”
Please share this story.