The prestigious Colombian novelist Héctor Abad attends Clarín while the train that transports him leaves the capital Kiev. Only 24 hours ago he managed to survive a missile attack on the city of Kramatorsk. In his voice you can still feel the impact of the nearby rattles, the pain of the drama lived and the sadness for the chance that one of the women who accompanied him, an incisive local writer named Victoria Amelina, may not have survived the enemy fire that reached them. For sure, Abad does not know if Victoria lives, nor will he have any way to know immediately. It's broken.
On Tuesday night they had ordered pizzas and made jokes about how to get a bottle of beer in the middle of the war, something that is forbidden due to the prohibition that prevails in the combat zones of eastern Ukraine. They had a table in the outer courtyard of that crowded pizzeria, mostly military and journalists and a few families. Victoria had proposed to Abad, Sergio Jaramillo (former peace commissioner) and war correspondent Catalina Gómez that they go there. Victoria ordered a non-alcoholic beer. They bowed to toast.
In a second the détente can turn into smoke and debris. All of a sudden, everything can be overshadowed and turned into daze and confusion. Something like this manages to describe Abad in a conversation with Clarín. That missile that destroyed everything killed 11 people, including two 14-year-old twin sisters. It hit the center of the ceiling of the hall. "If we were inside, we would definitely have died," Abad says.
Colombian writer Héctor Abad, former peace commissioner Sergio Jaramillo and Colombian journalist Catalina Gómez escaped unharmed last night from a Russian cruise missile attack on the restaurant where they were dining in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk and in which a Ukrainian writer was seriously injured. This has been confirmed by Abad and Jaramillo in a statement, in which they noted that "they are well and only suffered minor injuries", but the Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina, who was with them, is "in critical condition due to a skull injury". In the photo, Sergio Jaramillo after the attack. EFE/Catalina Gomez Angel
Abad and Jaramillo had launched at the Hay Festival in Cartagena, in February, the initiative Hold Ukraine. A platform designed from solidarity. The Colombian war correspondent Catalina Gómez had folded to them. From Aguanta Ukraine they proposed that the civilian population of Latin America have a voice in the conflict to oppose the invasion of Russia, that they do not ignore the conflict and accompany the Ukrainian people with their signatures. "It's a campaign for common sense, to call a spade a spade. Invading one's neighbor is what it is: an invasion, attacking civilians in their homes with missiles is what it is: killing civilians. It needs no further comment and cannot be ignored," they had assured during the launch of the campaign. It was time to present Hold Ukraine on the ground.
Abad tells Clarín: "Because of the campaign we came to the Kiev book fair. It is a campaign of Latinos in favor of Ukraine. At the Fair Victoria Amelina joined, she was enthusiastic, she wanted to tell us about her investigation into Putin's war crimes. After the book fair, as I have a book translated into Ukrainian, I participated in a signing of copies. We were calm, with that tense calm that is lived here. And then we resolved to go further east to see the more direct effects of the war."
Kramatorsk, 28/06/2023.- The remains of the place hit by Putin's fire. EFE
"Victoria was very happy with the campaign," recalls Abad, "and said she was joining us. The five of us left: Sergio, Victoria, Catalina, the fixer Dima and the driver heading to Jarkiv. We were in many places: hospitals, destroyed sites, talking to people. Victoria knew everything very well. She had been several times to Kramatorsk and proposed that place. We arrived a quarter past seven. The curfew was at nine. The place was very crowded with civilians, children, young people, military girlfriends. At 7.28 my clock is paralyzed. An explosion came like I never felt in my life, not from the air, but from under the ground."
Victoria leans in to toast. It's the last thing Abad sees before impact. Then the jolt doesn't lift him, but knocks him to the ground. He is stunned. Open your eyes. Victoria is sitting, motionless in her chair, "pale as a wax candle," Abad tells Clarín. With the head slightly tilted. "Something splattered all my clothes in black and I had black spots everywhere. It looked like blood. But he wasn't hurt. Nothing hurt. I had been told that a bullet does not hurt, that one is wounded but does not feel pain. Victoria was sitting, lost, but sitting, like she went. It wouldn't bend. She was sitting. Head bowed. She was pale, as if placid. Sergio and Catalina would talk to her but she wouldn't react at all," he says.
The writer continues: "I felt the buzz. Everything was like in slow motion. I begin to hear voices. Everything was very weird. They were voices of fear. Or relief. Or I don't know what. In those someone arrives, a paramedic and grabs me by the arm and takes me out of the place. That I walked away because sometimes the Russians shoot two missiles as if to finish it off. I sat on some stairs like on a sidewalk, nearby. The fixer's truck had all the windows shattered. Alarms sounded but this time the attack warning sirens had not sounded."
Abad regains meaning in a different place. He is now in Kramatorsk Hospital 3. They see the horror. He is with Sergio, who managed to locate him minutes before by phone. They are together. They are afraid. They are looking for Victoria. Catherine follows them. They see the horror: "Ambulances, stretchers, bloodied people, we saw the war, still dazed, trying to find Victoria. The metal blankets wrapping people alive or perhaps dead: I can't describe the horror any other way. I don't know if I can be accurate. We leave there without knowing what happened to Victoria, whether she managed to survive or not."
Abad, who had just recovered from heart-to-chest surgery, feels like he's been born again. He does not say so, but it is crossed by the mixture of relief and pain. I was touring Ukraine with an unbeatable sense of life, drive and conviction. They went deepening, gaining confidence, into a critical area, the gateway to the Donetsk region.
File photo of Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina who suffered a severe skull fracture during the missile attack by Russian forces in Kramatorsk. EFE/Hector Abad
Until the beginning of the war in the city of Kramatosrtk lived about 250 thousand people. But most of the civilian population left. Today the city is full of Ukrainian soldiers. Soldiers replenishing. Soldiers resting when they return from the battlefront.
There are five confectioneries or bars open. They are always full. From six in the morning until curfew time, at 8 at night. They are places, like all places, frequented by fighters of different degrees. Journalists who come to the city from different points also meet there. Many from Kiev, many from Kharkiv, the two big cities that have regained their strength even as the missiles continue to hit them.
In these confectioneries take place many of the interviews conducted by the international press. They are places of management. They are meeting points. Also of détente. It is likely that for the Russians, any point of the city is appealing from the tactical point of view. The reading they make is that wherever a missile falls it will end up killing soldiers. All of Kramatorstk is a target for the invading army. Abbot and company knew it, but in war you go on, you live, somehow, as if death were going to reach others and not you.
"It's all been very strange, very crazy," Abad says. He works with words but does not find the right ones to describe what he experienced. The train runs from Kiev to Lviv. At times the signal is lost. But the conversation with Clarín continues. "We live in astonishment at barbarism. A missile, apparently from a plane, falls where there are dozens and dozens of people talking and eating. It is death that imposes itself. What we didn't expect to happen, happened to us. I could hardly sleep and, every kilometer that passes away from the hell created by the Russians in Donetsk, I feel safer," he says.
And he finishes: "This was a testimonial journey and, suddenly, it has become a tragic journey in which our colleague Victoria Amelina is between life and death. And we, sad and dismayed, return to where we can, to where we think we will be safe..."