The key facts
- A large family from Aleshki ate grass for three months, the mother of seven said after the evacuation
- The family with seven children, the youngest of whom is three years old, decided to stay in Russia and arrived in Simferopol on October 30
- Only one therapist remains at the Olezhkovskaya hospital; a car hit a mine on a mined road, killing one person
The family ate grass for three months
A large family from Aleshki in the Kherson region ate grass due to a shortage of food. This was told to Izvestia newspaper correspondent Leonid Kitrary by Lyudmila, a mother of seven children, already after the evacuation to Simferopol. 'We ate whatever we could find. We ate grass — both the children and the adults ate it. For three months it was very hard,' Life.ru quotes her as saying. According to the woman, the last three months were especially difficult.
Evacuation and settling in Simferopol
The woman and her children decided to leave the city and stay in Russia. During the humanitarian operation, Life.ru showed the evacuation of the family with seven children. Children's rights commissioner Yana Lantratova said the parents hesitated for a long time about whether to leave, but eventually agreed. The youngest child in the family is three years old.
Conditions for the arrivals
On the evening of October 30, the evacuees arrived in Simferopol, where for the first time in a long while they were able to spend a night without the constant threat of shelling. As Life.ru reported, rooms, hot meals and medical examinations were prepared for the people. According to the Izvestia correspondent, many of the arrivals were found to have health problems.
The situation in Aleshki itself
The medical care situation in the city remains dire. Acting head physician of the Olezhkovskaya hospital Yelena Klimchuk said: 'There is a staffing shortage, there are no doctors, only one therapist.' Mined roads also pose a danger: according to the correspondent, shortly before the humanitarian convoy arrived, local resident Sergei and his parents drove to the store by car because they had run out of food at home. The car hit a mine — the man's father was killed, and Sergei himself received leg injuries.
The humanitarian operation continues
During the mission in Aleshki, a field kitchen was set up: residents lined up for hot meals, and some took several portions for their loved ones. Those who chose evacuation to Ukraine were given a separate route. Already on October 31, three Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft carrying evacuated residents arrived in Gomel, Belarus, from where the people are planned to be transported to the Novaya Guta border crossing.
