In Pictures

In Pictures: Destruction in Ukraine’s Luhansk

More than 500 people have been killed in the contested city, where a shaky ceasefire holds.

People were able to gather the dead for the first time when the ceasefire began two weeks ago between the Ukrainian army and rebel forces. In Luhansk, the city morgue reported 526 casualties since May 1. Nearly all were civilians and nearly all were killed by shelling, rockets and mortars.

22 Sep 2014

Luhansk, Ukraine – The road into Luhansk is surreal, like something out of the apocalypse. Near the airport, a shell-shattered, abandoned tank sits at the top of a freeway on-ramp. In the village of Lutuhyne, more than 30 armoured personnel carriers and troop trucks lie burnt to a crisp under blackened, skeletal trees. Children collect scrap metal from their bodies.

Inside the city – which had a population of 400,000 before the conflict began – the scene is no better. The ceasefire that began two weeks ago has allowed people to finally come out of bomb shelters and collect the dead. Some corpses had been lying outside for three weeks. Anatoly Turevich, the director of Luhansk’s morgue, has listed 526 dead since May 1. More than 80 bodies were recently buried in a mass grave. Some remain unidentified; some, hopefully, will be found by relatives when they return.

Though the physical damage to Luhansk – or Lugansk, as it’s pronounced in Russian – has been substantial, the emotional trauma its people have faced is immeasurable. For more than two months, the Ukrainian army closed the circle on the city, until it was nearly cut off.

The centre of Luhansk is in tatters, but villages like Bolshaya Verkhunka, on the northeastern edge of the city, are devastated. Roughly one of every two houses there seem to have suffered serious damage or been complete destroyed.

In one home, the walls collapsed under shelling, trapping Vitaly and Marina Yushko in their basement. The shelling caused the rubble to catch fire, which burned the brother and sister to death. They are buried in a grave in their backyard – a grave that has not been reported to the authorities – giving weight to speculation that the death toll may well be higher than the 3,000 estimated by the United Nations.

But many in Luhansk – like Turevich, the morgue director; and Valentina Kiyashko, the city’s director of education – are working to bring the city back to life. At a recent school event called Luhansk My Love, students sang and danced – but some cried. The wounds are fresh and the pain out for everyone to see. Of more than 60 schools in the city, only six have opened. Only 1,500 out of a student population of about 33,000 remain.

With a shaky ceasefire in place, some hope that life may slowly return to normal. But both sides continue to shoot and rearm. For many, it seems the war is a long way from being over.

Some dead bodies had laid outside for as long as three weeks. About one-quarter of those buried in this mass grave, located between the morgue and the airport, were unidentified.

The remains of Ukrainian armoured vehicles destroyed by shelling and a Grad rocket strike in the village of Lutuhyne, one week before the beginning of the ceasefire.

A woman in the suburb of Yubileynoe walks in front of her house, which was damaged by shelling. The strike caused an internal wall to buckle, nearly trapping her beneath it, and caused severe structural damage to the building.

Lyubov Zheleznyak breaks down as she tells the story of how her neighbours, Vitaly and Marina Yushko, burnt to death during a battle in Bolshaya Verkhunka, a village near Luhansk. The pair, a brother and sister, burnt to death after their house collapsed, trapping them in their basement.

Nikolai Zapasny and his wife survey the damage to their house in the village of Bolshaya Verkhunka. It was destroyed during a battle between the Ukrainian army and the rebels that took place just outside their house.

Men try to repair a transformer in the village of Lutuhyne after it was destroyed by rebels attacking a convoy of Ukrainian armoured vehicles camped there. People all over the region are taking advantage of the shaky ceasefire to make repairs.

Much of the city of Luhansk remains empty after it was encircled and shelled by the Ukrainian army. Of around 60 schools, only six were open last week. Only 1,500 students were attending as of September 1, compared to the usual figure of 33,000.

One of the children in this second-grade class was killed while driving through the city with his family. Students from all over the city have been combined into just six operating schools.

Even with so many gone, teachers have stayed or returned and are trying to instil in the children who are present a sense of normalcy. They(***)re walking a strange line - teaching the government curriculum in rebel-held territory, while also trying to honour the dead, but not dwell on the trauma.

The situation remains far from normal. After functioning for a day earlier this week, the power is out again. There is no running water, only an occasional phone signal and the shops are mostly closed. This one on the main street only operated out of the front door, selling necessities like water and eggs.

Another shop boasted a larger selection ranging from vodka and frozen chicken to beets and carrots. But the queue stretched out to the street. Rebels were also in the shop, taking advantage of the ceasefire to stock up.

A rebel at a checkpoint on the road heading from the city to the airport, which was destroyed and used as a firing position into the city by the Ukrainian army.

Some 3,000 people have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Though a ceasefire remains in effect, it is shaky. More bodies are expected to be uncovered in the coming weeks in Luhansk, the hardest-hit of any of the big cities. And if fighting starts again, more graves like this will need to be dug.