From our special correspondent in Ukraine
Here cranes, there the sound of hammers to renovate the apartments of buildings still marked by the bombardments. In Irpin and Boutcha, the daily has resumed its rights. And the urgency is for the reconstruction, the connection to water and electricity of the damaged houses and the rehousing of the inhabitants who have lost theirs.
“In Irpin, 70% of housing was damaged or destroyed,” confirms Irina Myguetko, secretary general of the town hall. Our priority is to provide decent housing for all families who lost theirs before the cold weather arrived. But the means are lacking. “The State provides for the support of certain works, but the schools and reception facilities also need to be renovated”, continues Irina Myguetko, hard at work even on weekends.
Residents can’t forget the horror
“Since February 24 and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, we have been working seven days a week,” confirms his colleague Dmytro Negrecha. Since the war, nothing is normal. And even among these children who run in the square of the town hall, there are among them who continue to sleep with their shoes at the foot of the bed, in case they have to flee the bombardments.
With tears in her eyes, Louba, a resident of kyiv, on a weekend in Boutcha at her sister’s house, shows the photos of the cellar where the members of her family have lived holed up in the cold for weeks. Outside the rachists [contraction de russes et fascistes] as the Ukrainians now call them, were trying to take over the country. Thefts, damage, summary executions, corpses left in the streets. The inhabitants of these cities in the greater suburbs of kyiv cannot forget the horror of those weeks, revealed to the eyes of the world when mass graves were discovered in Boutcha. “What struck me when I returned to Irpin and Boutcha after the Russesen had left was the smell of death,” recalls Alona Shkrum, a Ukrainian MP.
Life took over. And, with it, the necessities of everyday life and finding funds. “We are trying to set up twinnings with foreign cities to support our construction sites”, explains Dmytro Negrecha, from the town hall of Irpin, who hopes that this strategy will pay off. It’s time. The Ukrainians who left to take refuge abroad are coming back. Just look at the trains that connect Europe and Ukraine filled with families, welcomed by bouquets of flowers or heart-shaped balloons. Irpin and Boutcha, two cities in full economic and demographic growth before the war came to put a stop to them. Two cities that their inhabitants now want to rebuild at all costs.