Igor, 31 (left), sergeant and commander of a sapper unit, installing a marker to demarcate a demined area in a field in Tsyrkuny, Kharkiv region. Albert Lores for Le Figaro
REPORT – Now that the Russians no longer occupy Kamianka, the sappers must secure the village before the inhabitants return.
From our special correspondent in the Izyoum and Kharkiv region
The hideous scars of war can be seen from the road which leads from Izyoum to the village of Kamianka. The houses, ruined, have only shreds of stone and colored plaster for walls in places. The second floor of the school was pierced by a shell, the church reduced to ashes, and only three white Orthodox crosses remain in front of the square. The cultural center, which served as barracks for the Russians during their six months of occupation, is closer to him, more of a landfill than a library.
Reconstruction could heal Kamianka, but the insidious threat of mines scattered everywhere prevents the wound from closing. Eleven residents have been injured while clearing mines themselves since the liberation on September 11. “Only 2% of the region has been cleared», Specifies Volodymyr Matsokin, deputy head of the military administration of Izyum (eastern Ukraine). Some 250,000 square kilometers of Ukraine…
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