War in Ukraine – In Kostiantynivka, with the Damned of Donbass

Senjoying her cigarette on the balcony of her two-room apartment in downtown Kostiantynivka, in the heart of Ukraine’s Donbass, from which half of the 70,000 inhabitants have fled in recent weeks, is the only pleasure of Emma, ​​60, whose the high cheekbones and the port of queen emphasize the airs of “Polish Countess”, a distant origin that she likes to claim. For three weeks Emma has been living here with Marina, 17, the orphan she is guardian of, and Tolik, 43, her stepfather. All three fled the fighting raging about forty kilometers south, in Novobakhmutovka, a village on the front line, not far from Donetsk, the capital of the self-proclaimed republic of the same name. The apartment was donated by the Ukrainian state to…

Anne Nivat (x3) – via REUTERS – Sergei Bobylev/TASS/Sipa USA/SIP