帰宅は命懸け…地雷やブービートラップが自宅にも キーウ北部

【ＡＦＰ＝時事】ウクライナ首都キーウ北西にある集落モシチュンの自宅に戻る住民は命懸けだ。撤退したロシア軍があちこちに不発弾や地雷、ブービートラップを残して行ったためだ。（写真は破壊されたモシチュンの自宅前で涙ぐむ住民）
　爆撃され、焼け落ち、略奪被害に遭った家に入るには、いったんは逃れた死や負傷の危険を冒すことになる。
　「地雷の幾つかは除去されたと聞いていたけど、うちの庭でブービートラップを見つけた」と、オレナ・クリメンコさんは語った。「それでも、家から取ってこなければならない私物がある」
　侵攻直後に国外に避難した数百万人の一部が、ロシア軍との激戦地となっていたキーウ北部に戻ってきている。無差別に破壊され壊滅した故郷を目の当たりにする人も多い。
　松林に囲まれた人口１０００人弱のモシチュンもその一つだ。ほぼすべての家屋が爆撃で被害を受け、窓ガラスは粉々に割れている。完全に焼失した家もある。
「連中は何もかもを破壊した。私たちが何年もかけて築いた全てを」と話したのは、パン職人のワディム・ジェルデツキーさん（５１）。経営する店の建物は破壊されずに済んだが、ロシア軍はドアをこじあけて酒を残らず持ち去った。食料品はウクライナ軍や住民に分けてしまったため、ロシア軍が来た時にはもう店内にほとんど残っていなかった。
　めちゃくちゃにされた店を片付ける前に、ジェルデツキーさんはトラップや不発弾がないかを確認しなければならなかった。当局の地雷除去チームが安全確保を行っているが、集落に数十軒ある建物全ての確認を終えてはいないためだ。
　「フックを付けた縄を使った。投げて、床に沿って引っ張る。何も爆発しなければ、５メートル前に進める。ドアも同じように、フックを引っ掛けて開けた」。爆発物は見つからなかった。
　作業の危険性についてジェルデツキーさんは、侵攻を受けた際の砲撃や銃撃、戦車の恐怖に比べれば大したことではないと肩をすくめる。「仕方がない」
　クリメンコさんは庭で不発弾１発と、隣家との間に張られた長い針金を見つけた。トラップに見えたので、家族を通じて兵士に知らせたという。
　集落を警備するウクライナ軍は、ロシア軍が撤退時に仕掛けたとみられるトラップの危険が特に高いと指摘する。トラップは、住民が拾いたくなるような物を狙って仕掛けられているという。
　「地面に置いた宝飾品の下に穴を掘り、爆発物を置く。おもちゃや、ロシア兵の遺体にも仕掛けられていた」と、兵士の一人は証言した。この証言や、トラップや不発弾の犠牲になった住民がいたかについて、ＡＦＰは確認できていない。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/04/25-13:10）

Locals trickling back to the pummelled Ukrainian village of Moshchun must effectively sign away their lives for permission to enter.
That's because invading Russian troops are gone from the village northwest of Kyiv -- but their missiles, mines and booby traps are not.
In order for residents to visit their burned, bombed and looted houses, they have to accept, in the form of a waiver, the risk of death or maiming by remnants of the invasion they had at least initially escaped.
They say they did some de-mining. We found a booby trap in our garden. It seems it was disarmed, we don't know, said resident Olena Klymenko, whose home was destroyed. Still, we need to look for our stuff.
A portion of the millions of Ukrainians who fled abroad in the war's earliest days have now come back home, especially to the area north of Kyiv that Russians retreated from after Ukraine's fierce resistance.
Many returning residents have encountered devastating and seemingly indiscriminate destruction, including those from the pine forest-ringed village of Moshschun that was home for under 1,000 people before the war.
Nearly all of its homes are pocked or pierced by shrapnel and have shattered windows, but a minority were completely incinerated.
Rusting steel frames, cylinders and tangles of wire are the only evidence of the furniture, washing machines and beds there were before invading forces reached the area in the early days of the war, which began on February 24.
They destroyed everything, everything we worked for years to build, said 51-year-old shop owner and baker Vadym Zherdetskyi of the invasion.
Though damaged, his store is still standing, but he told AFP that Russian troops pried open its doors and carted away the alcohol.
He said the looters got little else because most of the food supplies inside had already gone to Ukrainian troops and locals.
In order to begin cleaning up the mess, he first had to personally check the property for traps or unexploded ordnance because official de-mining teams have not been able to clear all the village's dozens of structures.
I used a rope with a hook on it. You have to throw it and pull it along the ground. If nothing explodes, then you can move forward another five meters. Same with the door ?- you use the hook to pull it open, he added, noting he found no explosives.
He shrugged off the risk, especially after the terror of artillery or rocket strikes, gunfire and tanks during the invasion: That's life.
- 'Much worse here' -
The lingering threat of the explosives hurled at the village, and booby traps, is not an idle one.
Klymenko had an unexploded rocket in her yard, as well as a length of wire that was strung between her and the neighbour's property.
To her it looked like a trap, so her family notified soldiers. She wasn't sure what it turned out to be -? the family is now staying in Kyiv.
Soldiers guarding the village claimed the risk was especially elevated from traps allegedly set by retreating Russian troops, which employed enticing items to tempt people to pick them up and thus set off an explosion.
They dig a hole under jewellery on the ground and put an explosive there. Same with the children's toys, and the bodies of their own soldiers, said a 39-year-old Ukrainian soldier who spoke on condition that he be named by his call-sign Shchavlik.
AFP could not confirm his account or whether any locals had been victims of traps or encounters with unexploded ordnance.
Some of the residents had fled with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing and their ID papers ?- everything else was consumed by explosions and resulting fires.
They felt fortunate to have survived, yet were carrying the terror of everything they had seen, heard and felt during the onslaught against their home town.
Nadia Odientsova, 62, spent days under explosive strikes, taking refuge in the cellars of three different homes before it was over, because the first two burnt to the ground.
When we arrived in Kyiv, they settled us in a hospital. When the air raid sirens would go off, people would get scared, but we were not afraid of it anymore, she told AFP as she surveyed the ruins of her home.
After all those (projectiles) flying over our heads -? and all the bombing and fire ?- we were not scared of the sirens any more. It was much worse here, she said.