Siversk, Ukraine, July 23 (AFP\/APP):Oleksy’s grave was dug hastily on the sidewalk near one of the few buildings still standing in Siversk, a small town in eastern Ukraine near the frontline of the war with Russia.<\/p>\n
The 46-year-old died in a missile strike on June 30, one of the many victims of Russia’s February invasion of pro-Western Ukraine.<\/p>\n
His final resting place outside the Siversk culture centre is but a small mound of earth, covered with two concrete slabs — part of a nearby fence — that serve as a tombstone.<\/p>\n
“Rest in peace, my brother. We love you, we remember you, we mourn you,” says a cardboard sign near the makeshift grave.<\/p>\n
A small bouquet of yellow flowers has been placed on top.<\/p>\n
“What can I tell you? He was sitting there in front of his house, there were two missiles and he was killed instantly,” said Valery, a 56-year-old neighbour.<\/p>\n
But he doesn’t have time to share more information. In Siversk, it is dangerous to linger in one place for too long.<\/p>\n
Siversk lives and breathes fear. The town of around 10,000 people before the war has for weeks been relentlessly shelled by the nearby Russian forces.<\/p>\n
Its streets are riddled with huge craters, its buildings scorched by fire. Outside stray cats and dogs play near the remains of rockets embedded in the sidewalks.<\/p>\n
Visible through the first-floor windows of heavily damaged buildings are relics of an abandoned life: dressers, family photos, overturned armchairs.<\/p>\n
– ‘I can’t leave her’ –<\/p>\n
But despite the looming danger, some people are out on the streets, walking or riding bicycles, with the facial expressions of those who are beyond fear.<\/p>\n
“I would like to leave, of course, but I have a 90-year-old mother, who told me she would die here. I can’t leave her,” says Oleksandr, a man in his 60s.<\/p>\n
Others do not have the means to flee the constant shelling.<\/p>\n
“We have our house here; it’s the work of our life. And we don’t have the money to leave,” says 50-year-old Anzhela, who like most people preferred to only give her first name.<\/p>\n
At the entrance into underground cellars where the town’s remaining civilians take shelter, gas heaters are used to cook food.<\/p>\n
But others have evacuated or are doing so now as the fighting for eastern Ukraine intensifies. A family drives past in a car with a trailer carrying a fridge and a bicycle.<\/p>\n
A torn Ukrainian flag flies over what remains of a building blackened by flames, likely a dormitory for workers.<\/p>\n
And in front of a house nearly reduced to ashes, lies an empty wooden coffin.<\/p>\n
It seems nobody had time to use it for its intended purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Siversk, Ukraine, July 23 (AFP\/APP):Oleksy’s grave was dug hastily on the sidewalk near one of the few buildings still standing in Siversk, a small town in eastern Ukraine near the frontline of the war with Russia. The 46-year-old died in a missile strike on June […]<\/p>\n
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