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“I never imagined living this in France”: Alina, Ukrainian refugee, victim of a violent attack

2022-09-13T13:03:03.193Z


Two Ukrainian refugees were beaten up on Sunday evening in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (Alpes-Maritimes) by a man speaking Russian


The mildness of the Côte d'Azur had surely made them forget the din of the bombs.

After fleeing war-torn Ukraine, Alina, 31, and her mother Olena, 54, thought they were safe from violence in France.

But, as the youngest tells Le Parisien, these two Ukrainian refugees were violently attacked on Sunday evening in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (Alpes-Maritimes) around 10:30 p.m. by a man of Russian origin.

That evening, while the 30-year-old and her mother are taking a quiet walk along the blue Gulf road, near the seaside, Alina receives a message from one of her Ukrainian friends on her phone.

"It was a new humorous song that pokes fun at Russia called

A World Without Russians

 ," recalls the young woman from the recently recaptured town of Izium near Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine.

She opens the video and activates the sound of her laptop.

Read alsoWar in Ukraine: "The withdrawal of the Russians is a form of seesaw"

At the same time, the duo crosses paths with a group of four people, made up of two men, one of whom is "very muscular", a woman and a child, speaking Russian.

"They pass us, but a few meters further, when we had taken another street, we turned around and saw the burly man rushing towards us", says Alina in perfect French.

The aggressor, first strikes two punches in the face of the young Ukrainian who falls on the asphalt.

“He then approached my mother and hit her three times, breaking her nose.

There was blood everywhere,” she recalls with a trembling voice.

The man then flees and the young woman manages to call for help.

The case goes back to kyiv

Taken to the hospital in Menton, the two refugees received in France in April after a long journey through Russia and Estonia, are treated.

Alina suffers from knee injuries and her mother has a broken nose.

Today, the 30-year-old still complains of the after-effects of the attack: “I have trouble walking, nausea and my head is spinning”.

Alina, who worked as a communications officer in Izioum, says she filed a complaint at the Menton police station on Monday, to try to find their attacker.

The Nice prosecutor's office confirms to Le Parisien on Tuesday the opening of an investigation by the head of voluntary violence aggravated by several circumstances.

"They told me that they were going to do everything possible and that there were CCTV cameras at the scene of the attack", delivers the young Ukrainian who assures that the man was speaking in Russian, with "the very specific accent of Moscow".

The case would even go up to kyiv on Tuesday.

“Our diplomats are interacting with the French police to quickly investigate this attack,” assured the spokesman for Ukrainian Foreign Minister Oleg Nikolenko, according to Nice-Matin.

The Ukrainian embassy in France, for its part, affirmed to follow the situation “closely” and to remain “in contact” with the two victims.

“We are cooperating with the authorities for a prompt investigation into this heinous incident,” she reacted in a tweet on Monday.

We are closely monitoring the situation of the two Ukrainian women who were victims of an attack in the South of France.

Our consuls are in contact with the 2 women, who have received the necessary medical assistance.

We are cooperating with the authorities🇫🇷for a prompt investigation into this heinous incident

— UA Embassy in France (@UKRinFRA) September 12, 2022

Alina, who studied communication at Celsa in Paris between 2019 and 2020, is still extremely shocked by this incident.

"For me, France is an ultra-secure country and I did not imagine myself living that here at all", testifies the one who went with her mother through the famous "filtration camps" in Ukraine, in which the Russians lead tough interrogations.

"I obviously support my country against this unjustified invasion, but I have always been careful not to provoke anyone," she says.

"I regularly meet Russians here but none have ever touched me," she continues, adding that she was now "afraid of meeting her attacker again".

This attack comes in a tense context in Ukraine.

The forces of kyiv, which since the beginning of September have been carrying out a lightning counter-offensive in the regions of Kharkiv (east) and to a lesser extent in Kherson (south), claim to have already reconquered some 6,000 km2 of territory.

Even if the Kremlin assures that "the special military operation (

in Ukraine

) will continue until the objectives are achieved", criticisms are beginning to emerge within the country's borders.

Source: leparis

All tech articles on 2022-09-13

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