DOBROPILLIA, Ukraine (AFP) — Residents of Dobropillia in eastern Ukraine have become used to Russian attacks since their neighbor invaded in February 2022 but Friday’s cluster munition attack was of a different order.
Targeting the center of the town, around 30 kilometers from the front line in the Donetsk region, the barrage killed 11 people and wounded 40 others, including six children, according to Ukrainian emergency services.
“It was apocalyptic,” said Iryna Kostenko, 59, her hand bandaged with blood-stained cloth.
First there was a “dull sound” in the night. Then the little market at the foot of her building “exploded.”
Neither Russia nor Ukraine are parties to the international treaty outlawing the use of cluster munitions — bombs which explode mid-air and scatter miniature explosives, sometimes hundreds of them, over a wide area.
Several of Iryna’s neighbors died in the attack. She saw the bodies.
“The blood... the clots... Hit right in the head,” she muttered, staring vacantly at the blackened and scarred concrete. “It was horrible.”
She found Svitlana, who lived in her building, outside the entrance “lying dead on the ground with a sheet over her.”
A young couple who had recently moved into the area were “burnt alive,” she said.
As she spoke, firefighters fought to tackle a blaze still tearing through the blocks of flats.