ReportIn a locality in the northeast of kyiv, women evoke in veiled words the sexual violence committed by troops from Moscow. According to the Ukrainian human rights defender, rape is systematically used as a weapon of war.
The village was calm, uneventful, with its few thousand inhabitants and its storks’ nests. The mayor is 42 years old. She remembers that in the past, her constituents complained about the state of the roads. Today, they talk in veiled terms about other subjects. “Dirty Things”, say the villagers. From ” things “ that happened when this small town in the northeast of kyiv was occupied by Russian troops, between February 24 and March 30.
On her return to the village, at the beginning of April, the mayor herself received two calls. “The first was a man who told me about the rape of his wife by Russian soldiers. The second was another woman who was herself raped.”, explains the chosen one, thin and discreet. She refuses to give more details. Like the other people interviewed by The worldshe demands that her identity and the name of the village not be mentioned: “I’m afraid the Russians are coming back. » This fear is shared by all the inhabitants interviewed by The world.
Opposite the town hall, the church is almost intact. But inside, everything is upside down. “A rocket came in here and broke everything”, says Dmitry, the priest (the first name has been changed). He is the pillar of the village. Its inhabitants have found in him a confidant. He too knows what happened during the Russian occupation. “Most of the victims are not ready to tell what happened to them. We brought in a psychologist for one of them., explains Dmitry. According to him, the victim “talked a bit. And then she cried and she ended up saying nothing more,” slips this man with the piercing gaze.
“I don’t want my daughter to come back here”
But the latter, Ivanna (first name has been changed), 39, that The world was able to meet at her house, decided to talk again. It was March 13, on the eve of the opening of the humanitarian corridor which allowed the inhabitants to flee the village. A single mother of a 14-year-old girl, she had moved in with her neighbor, Katya. The soldiers arrived in the afternoon. “They were drunksays Ivanna. They looked like Buryats” (Mongolian community of the Russian Far East). The armed men started shooting in the air in the yard. Then they entered the house and forced Katya’s husband to lie face down on the ground before turning to the women. “One loaded his weapon and turned it towards us”said Ivanna.
Looking down, she rubs her hands to fight the tears: “They said to me: ‘Either you come with us. Or it’s your daughter. The choice is yours.” He grabbed my daughter’s hand and pointed his gun at my neck. I yelled at them, “Do what you want with me. But don’t touch my child!” We were forced to get naked. They separated us. They saw that I had my period. It saved me from rape. »
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