Refugees flee Irpin hours before town is recaptured

KYIV • Deafened by shelling, the elderly woman stepped down from an ambulance on the edge of Kyiv, to be smothered in tearful embraces from her son and daughter.

They had no idea whether 86-year-old Olga Molchanova would be among the final residents being evacuated from the devastated commuter town of Irpin. But her husband Mykola, 81, is still in Irpin, declaring that "he'd rather die there, handicapped with crutches", her daughter Agnesa Brovkina said.

Ms Molchanova left hours before Ukraine's Interior Minister said that Irpin had been "liberated" from Russian forces but that the town remained dangerous. AFP journalists said heavy shelling continued late on Monday on the road leading to Irpin, with some 20 loud explosions in the forest next to the highway.

"I just pray to God for salvation. I pray every day for the soldiers who defend us. Let them have courage," Ms Molchanova cried, wringing her hands.

She raised her hand to her ear when anyone spoke to her, and her daughter explained that a month of fighting since Russia's invasion had ruined her hearing.

"My mother was deafened by a rocket. All the time, non-stop, shelling. All day and night, bombing, shelling, all of it," said Ms Brovkina, a 62-year-old office worker. "They want to destroy Irpin."

Most people have already fled the once quiet suburban town on the strategic north-western entrance to Kyiv, leaving mainly the elderly and the sick to endure nearly a month of Russian bombardment.

After crossing a broken bridge across a river, the escapees are taken in ambulances to a dusty evacuation centre on the outskirts of Kyiv. They have endured hellish conditions, but at least they survived. "We saw those cars which tried to get out on their own; they were crushed by tanks, with people inside," said Ms Molchanova's son Roman Molchanov, 55, his voice cracking with emotion.

Most of those emerging from the ambulances that come from Irpin are elderly people, clutching their meagre belongings, but not all.

Ten-year-old Misha Romanenko held his little dog for comfort after he escaped with his parents. An aid worker handed him a chocolate bar. "It is important that I don't cry in front of him, then he holds up," said his mother Yelena Moisak, 41.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE