置き去りの高齢者、戦争の忘れられた被害者　ウクライナ

【ＡＦＰ＝時事】ウクライナ東部ドニプロの産科病院は現在、避難民の収容施設となっている。ウラジーミル・リグノフさん（７１）は、足を引きずりながらその廊下を歩く。灰色のジャージーの袖を肩までまくり上げ、腕を切断した傷跡を見せてくれた。今でも感覚があるという。（写真はウクライナ・ドニプロにある避難民の収容施設で過ごす高齢女性と孫）
　「３月２１日にたばこを吸いに外に出たら砲弾が当たり、腕を失った」。ロシア軍の攻撃を受けたのは、ウクライナ東部の工業都市アウディーウカの自宅でだった。
　支援活動に携わる人は、リグノフさんのような高齢者が、避難民の中でも特に脆弱（ぜいじゃく）だと指摘する。
　リグノフさんは以前、列車の車掌をしていた。なぜこのようなことが自分の身に起こったのか受け入れるのが難しいと話す。これから起こるかもしれないことが受け入れ難いのは言うまでもない。
　「何が起きているのか分からない。死んだ方がましかもしれない。もう生きていたくない」と話した。
　その横を別の高齢者が足を引きずりながら歩いていく。
　ワゴン車で東部から避難者が運ばれてきた。痛みにうめく３人の高齢者をボランティアが慎重に車いすに乗せた。ぼうぜんとした様子で車から降りて来た男性もいた。
　「一番大変なのは、地下壕（ごう）でずっと過ごしていた人だ」と、この施設でボランティア代表を務めるオルガ・ウォルコワさんは言った。施設では現在８４人が暮らしており、その大半が高齢者だ。
　「取り残された高齢者も多い。戦争前は私たちが支援していたが、今は自力で生活している」
　ＮＧＯ「ハンディキャップ・インターナショナル」のウクライナ担当フェデリコ・デッシー氏は、戦争が始まると高齢者は家族から切り離され、電話が使えず連絡が取れなくなることもあると指摘。「忘れられることも多く、極めて弱い存在だ」と語った。
　同ＮＧＯは現在、ドニプロの施設に物資を提供し、資金援助もしている。
　ハンディキャップ・インターナショナルは、ウクライナ政府の統計に基づき、ロシアの侵攻が始まった２月２４日以降、ドニプロ周辺に避難してきた高齢者・障害者は約１万３０００人に上ると推測している。
　マリウポリから逃れてきた人を主に受け入れている別の施設を運営するコンスタンチン・ゴルシコフさんは、「高齢者を収容する施設を１０か所造ったとしても、すぐに満員になるだろう」と話した。

■「３度目の戦争」
　ゾヤ・タランさんは、ベッドサイドに腰を下ろし、両手で歩行補助具を握っていた。腎臓が一つしかなく、体のバランスを取るのが難しく、糖尿病で視力も衰えているが、自分は幸運だと考えている。
　ロックミュージシャンの息子が、２０年前に「ショービジネス」のキャリアをあきらめ、自分の世話をしてくれたからだ。
　「私は年老いたおばあちゃんだ」とほほ笑みながら言った。「息子は私の目で、手で、脚で、自分には何もない」
　最初は避難をためらっていた。だが、ロシアの攻撃が近くなってくるにつれ、「息子を守るため」その時が来たと決心した。
　「なぜこの戦争が必要なのだろう。彼らは私たちに何を求めているのだろう」と泣きながら訴えた。
　元経済学教授、ユリヤ・パンフィオロワさん（８３）は、約１００人いる避難民に新たに加わった３０人の一人だ。
　ロシア軍に攻撃されているルガンスク州東部リシチャンスク出身のパンフィオロワさんは、「これは私にとって３度目の戦争だ」と言う。
　１度目は第２次世界大戦、２度目は２０１４年に起きたウクライナ政府軍と親ロシア派武装勢力との衝突を指している。
　「リシチャンスクは１９４３年にナチス・ドイツから解放された。その時にどうやって故郷に戻ったのか。もちろん、いくらかの記憶がある」
　「あれはナチスだった。私たちの国は侵攻された。そして今、他の国に侵攻された。当時、自由が脅かされたが、今また同じことが起きている」と訴えた。
　「私たちは戦うべきだ。でも、戦争はとても恐ろしい」【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/04/21-12:55）

Shuffling down the corridor of a refugee centre in Ukraine with his grey tracksuit sleeve rolled to his shoulder, 71-year-old Vladimir Lignov reveals the remains of a severed limb he says he can still feel.
It was on the 21st of March, I went out to smoke. Then a shell hit. I lost my arm, he says, recalling the strike on his home in Avdiivka, an industrial hub in east Ukraine and a military priority for invading Russian forces.
Now in relative safety in the central Ukraine city of Dnipro the former train conductor is among what aid workers say is a particularly vulnerable segment of the population -- the elderly.
In the Dnipro maternity hospital, hastily opened up to accommodate people fleeing Moscow's forces, Lignov is struggling to come to terms with what happened and why -- not to mention what might come next.
Medical staff at the Myrnorad hospital near ongoing fighting and where Lignov was treated after the strike say he should return for treatment in a week.
Staff in Dnipro, he says, told him he should return in three days.
I don't understand what's going on. Maybe it's better if I just go to the graveyard. I don't want to go on living, he says, as another elderly man hobbles past him in the corridor.
A van arrives from the east ferrying three elderly people groaning in pain as volunteers lower them gingerly into wheelchairs.
- 'I cried constantly' -
Other passengers are erratic. One man, dazed, reaches for his cigarettes as soon as he gets out of the van and grabs his belongings as if he is rushing to saftey.
The hardest are the people who spent long stretches in cellars, says Olga Volkova, the volunteer director of the centre, that houses 84 residents, most of whom are elderly.
A lot of people were left on their own. We helped them before the war, but then they were left to fend for themselves.
The elderly are often forgotten, very vulnerable in times of war says Federico Dessi, the Ukraine director of the NGO Handicap International, a group that provides equipment and will financially help the Dnipro home.
Cut off from their families and sometimes unable to use telephones or communicate they are particularly vulnerable in conflicts, Dessi said.
Leaving aside physical health, the elderly often they require additional help, which is often not available.
Aleksandra Vasiltchenko, an 80-year-old ethnic Russian from Ukraine is luckier than most of the other new arrivals.
For one, she is sure on her feet, despite other ailments, and her grandson comes to pick her up as soon as she arrives at the Dnipro home.
She was relieved to have escaped after spending weeks alone in her three-room apartment in the eastern Ukraine city of Kramatorsk, where Russian strikes recently killed nearly 60 people trying to flee by rail.
I was hiding all the time in the bathroom. I was constantly crying. I was imprisoned in my own flat, she tells AFP, saying she wished death on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children.
Perched on a bedside, her hands gripping a walking aid, Zoya Taran considers herself among the lucky ones -- that's despite having only one working kidney, precarious balance, diabetes and poor eyesight.
That because her rock musician son quit a career in show business two decades ago to care for her.
I am that elderly babushka, she says smiling. My son is my eyes, my hands and my legs. I have nothing on my own.
- 'What do they want from us?' -
So as Russian strikes edged closer to Sloviansk, Taran, who had initially hesitated to leave, finally decided it was time in order to save my son.
Why do we need this war? What do they want from us? she says, sobbing.
Citing Ukrainian government figures, Handicap International estimates that 13,000 elderly Ukrainians or people with disabilities have arrived in the wider Dnipro region since Russia launched its invasion in late February.
Another hub, mainly for evacuees from the besieged and destroyed port city of Mariupol, and their children, has also offered shelter to elderly residents from the east.
Even if you open 10 places like this, they will all be full, says Konstantin Gorshkov, who runs the centre with his wife Natalia.
Among the 30 new arrivals joining the roughtly 100 existing residents is 83-year-old Yulia Panfiorova from Lysychansk the eastern in the Lugansk region under attack by Russian forces.
The former economics professor -- now hard of hearing -- was very scared by the sound of shooting in her town and the three shells that stuck close enough to her home to blow out her windows.
This is my third war, she said, referring first to World War II, then the outbreak of fighting in 2014 between the Ukrainian army and pro-Kremlin separatists.
Lysychansk was freed from the Nazis in 1943. I remember how we returned home. Of course I have some memories about it.
They were Nazis. Then our country was invaded, and now our country has been invaded by a foreign state. Then the freedom of our state was at threat. Now it is the same.
We should fight... But the war is so scary.