Kramatorsk
Ukrainian author dies after cafe attack
The death toll has risen to 13. photo
© Alex Babenko/AP/dpa
Many people were sitting in the café in Kramatorsk when a Russian missile hit. Among them was the writer Victoria Amelina.
Writer Victoria Amelina has died from injuries sustained in a Russian missile attack on a cafe in eastern Ukraine Kramatorsk had suffered in the past week. This was announced by the Ukrainian Writers’ Association PEN. This brings the death toll from the attack on Kramatorsk to 13.
Shortly before the rocket hit, Amelina met three representatives of a Colombian NGO in the café, who suffered minor injuries in the attack. The 37-year-old Ukrainian was taken to hospital with severe skull injuries, where she died over the weekend.
According to her PEN colleagues, Amelina was not only an author but also an active civil rights activist. For years she has campaigned for the release of Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia and has been documenting war crimes and human rights violations with the non-governmental organization “Truth hounds” since 2022.
Her first non-fiction book in English, War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War, is due to be published soon and will cover Ukrainian women, who document war crimes and their own lives during the war.
In addition to Amelina, 12 other people, including three children, died in the Russian rocket attack on the restaurant in Kramatorsk on June 27. 61 people were injured. The city of Kramatorsk is located in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, only about 40 kilometers from the current front line.
Since the start of Russia’s war of aggression more than 16 months ago, it has repeatedly been the target of Russian shelling, with repeated civilian casualties. Last year, a Russian missile hit the Kramatorsk train station, killing 58 people. The human rights organization Human Rights Watch spoke at the time of a Russian war crime.