砲弾降り注ぐ前線、退避拒む市民も　ウクライナ東部

【リシチャンスクＡＦＰ＝時事】ここが戦場だと分かっているのか──。ロシアの侵攻を受けるウクライナ東部の前線に位置するリシチャンスクで、警官のビクトル・レフチェンコさん（３３）は、退避を拒否するアンジェリーナ・アバクモワさん（３０）を前にしびれを切らした。（写真はロシアの侵攻を受けるウクライナ東部リシチャンスクから退避する人々を助ける警察）
　市内の建物には、ロシア軍が放った砲弾がまた降り注ぎ始めていた。
　軍服とヘルメットで身を固めたレフチェンコさんは、装甲トラックに乗りより安全な地域に退避するよう、２児を連れた母親のアバクモワさんの説得に努めていた。アバクモワさんは過去１か月、真っ暗な地下壕（ごう）で暮らしてきた。
　「子どもと一緒にいまだにこんなところで何をしているんだ」と、レフチェンコさんは大きな声で迫った。「ここが戦場だと分かっているのか」
　アバクモワさんは、無言でうなずきはしたものの、一歩も引かない様子だ。レフチェンコさんはアバクモワさんに厳しい目を向け、親子ともどもすぐに命を落としかねないと警告した。
　さらに、アバクモワさんが前線にとどまっていることは、ウクライナの戦争努力全体にも悪影響を与えていると言い募った。ウクライナ軍が市民防衛に力を振り向けねばならず、ロシア軍との戦闘に集中できなくなるからだ。
　ここまで言って、レフチェンコさんはこの日の説得を断念した。「あすまた来る。身の回りの品をまとめて準備を整えておくように。子どもたちを安全な場所に避難させなければならない」と憤然と言った。
　アバクモワさんは地下壕に戻りながら、「考えを変えるつもりはない」とささやいた。「今ここは危険だ。ただ、状況は変わる。今度は向こうが危険になる。行ったり来たりすることに何の意味があるというのか」

■「そううまくはいかない」
　ウクライナ東部の前線で暮らす市民の中には、際限なく続く砲撃の中で戦争の終わりを待つという困難な道を選ぼうとしている人々がいる。
　理由はさまざまだが、新たな生活を始めるための金銭的な問題や、住む家を永遠に失う不安を挙げる人が多い。ある男性は「避難して貯金を使い果たし、無一文で戻ってきた多くの人を見てきた」と話した。
　アバクモワさんとのやりとりを終えたばかりのレフチェンコさんは、いずれの理由にも納得できない。「皆、事態を完全には理解していないのだと思う。われわれはこうした人々の元へ、砲撃を避け、やっとの思いで会いに行き、食料を配り、避難するよう説得しなければならない」と話した。
　市内には地下通路や地下室が設けられた建物があり、数十人が身を隠して生活している。「ここにいる人々は全てうまくいくだろうと思っている。だが残念ながら、そううまくはいかない」と語気を強めた。
　包囲された市内に残る住民に食料を配布しているボランティアによれば、人口１０万人だったリシチャンスクでは、今も２万人以上が暮らしている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/05/19-14:01）

The giant policeman in military fatigues and combat helmet was losing patience with the tiny woman staring at his chest and flatly refusing to evacuate from the Ukrainian front.
Whistling shells had just resumed smashing into buildings across the war-shattered industrial city of Lysychansk.
Angelina Abakumova stood a little closer to her two children outside a shelter where she had spent the past month living in a pitch-black bunker and did not budge.
Policeman Viktor Levchenko pointed to the sky in exasperation and tried to coax the mother into an armoured truck waiting to make a mad dash past Russian artillery positions to a slightly safer corner of Ukraine.
Seriously, tell me -- what are you still doing here with the children, the professional athlete turned regional traffic police chief demanded in a booming voice.
Do you understand that this is a war zone?
The 30-year-old mother nodded in silence and stood her ground.
Levchenko gave the mother a hard stare and told her that she and her children could soon die.
Then he told her that her presence was undermining the entire Ukrainian war effort by making the army focus on shielding civilians instead of fighting the Russians.
Then he gave up.
We will be back tomorrow and I expect to see you here ready with your things. These children have to be evacuated to a safe place, he said in a huff.
I am not changing my mind, Abakumova whispered on her way back to her basement.
It is dangerous here now. Then it changes and it becomes dangerous over there. What is the point of going back and forth?
- 'Everything is not fine' -
Some civilians across the east Ukrainian front are making the difficult decision to wait out the war under ceaseless Russian fire.
Their varying reasons often involve a mixture of insufficient money to start a new life and fear of permanently losing their homes.
None satisfy Levchenko.
I think people do not fully understand the situation, he said a few moments after his encounter with the young mother.
We have to evade shelling and make our way through very difficult conditions to reach these people and feed them and try to evacuate them, he said.
The people who sit here just think that everything will be fine, he said of the dozens hiding in the underground corridors and intertwining basements of one of the city's more fortified buildings.
But unfortunately everything is not fine, the 33-year-old said.
- Artillery fire -
Volunteers who collect and distribute food at the shelter estimate that more than 20,000 of Lysychansk's 100,000 residents are still trying to survive in the besieged city.
It has already lost power and cell phone service. Water stopped running in late April and the general assumption is that the gas line will be cut in the coming days.
The traumatised civilians who still walk the city's streets seem almost oblivious to the escalating rocket and artillery fire from Russian units trying to cut the coal mining centre off from the rest of Ukraine.
Pensioner Volodymyr Dobrorez woke up and counted more than 30 artillery strikes around a nearby bridge running to Severodonetsk -- a sister city now under partial Russian control -- by the time he had his lunch.
The battles have grown in number as the Russians try to gain control of hills overlooking a road providing Lysychansk's last link to the outside world.
The past three days have been especially bad, the 61-year-old said.
- 'Cannon fodder' -
Many of those who remain understand that their lives will probably never return to the way they were prior to Russia's February 24 invasion of its pro-Western neighbour.
At least one the city's four mines employing a large part of its workers has flooded because the power outage has halted the pumps.
I know that I won't have my old job back when this thing is over, said coalminer Vladyslav Sheremet.
But I have seen too many people leave, spend the last of their savings, and then come back with nothing.
Abakumova's reasons were more nuanced.
The mother said she had to balance the fate of her children against that of her husband and his brother.
Men of fighting age who are evacuated immediately get called up and sent off to the front like cannon fodder, she said while her son and daughter clowned around on blankets spread out across the bunker's concrete floor.
I will not let my husband and his brother go. They would die on day one.