the water war

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The other 200,000 residents of Mykolaiv have been without power in their homes for months as Russia cut off taps in neighboring Kherson.

Truck arriving, truck emptying. Volunteers work at breakneck speed in the trailers to distribute the thousands and thousands of bottles of water as quickly as possible. Outside, an endless queue of citizens, who arrived hours ago at this distribution point in the Ingulsky district, on the outskirts of Mikolaiv, is waiting to get their hands on a few liters of drinking water. “We come every week and distribute 150 tons of water, reaching about 10,000 people, but this may be the last delivery, because now the point of greatest need is Kherson,” reports Kostya, head of a group of volunteers from Odessa and Chernomorsk. .

Several loudspeakers set the tone for the van, inside it is hectic and there is not a second to lose. The water is flying and people are getting impatient. Nerves seize those who have waited a long time and see that they are left without a reward, there is shoving, screaming, despair. The bottles are running out and there are only chocolates left to hand out.

Since October, Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and Volodimir Zelensky increases the number of people without electricity to ten million. In Mikolaiv, the lack of fresh water in the houses contributes to the serious electricity crisis the country is going through and every day for months there is a struggle to get water. According to city officials, the Russians closed the freshwater intakes leading to this town, which were located in neighboring Kherson, 60 kilometers away. Once Kherson is released, everyone is confident that the problem will be solved, although no one rules out that these pipes were seriously damaged by the fighting. It’s all a breeze, as the Ukrainians used the same strategy with Crimea when Moscow annexed the peninsula in 2014.

The other option that residents have to get drinking water is from the taps that have been placed on the large squares in recent weeks. They approach with jugs, fill as much as they can and return home. Gallina, a 60-year-old cook, performs this operation twice a week. She takes 30 liters home with the help of a cart. «Moscow uses water as a weapon of war, just like electricity and gas. They are trying to punish civilians for our support of Ukraine when they expected us to welcome them with open arms. It is a form of collective punishment and it will not stop, which is why our infrastructure is being bombed every week.

The luckiest go to these motorized supply points, but most do so on foot, aided by shopping carts or even strollers converted into wagons to carry water. Everything serves to walk the long avenues of Mikolaiv.

“Our lives now revolve around water. When I often turn on the tap at home, there is no water and when it comes out it is yellow or brown,” explains 78-year-old Valentina, a former school teacher who misses seeing children on the streets in this city, which is reduced to half its population by the war. Its proximity to the front makes it a regular target for enemy missiles and many residents have fled in search of a safer place. “I hope the war will be over soon, but it depends on Russia,” says Valentina, closing her two jugs tightly and going home. Tomorrow it will be his turn to return to the same place.

The work of our correspondent in Istanbul, and currently a special envoy to Ukraine, has been recognized this week by the Information Media Association (AMI) for his “indispensable work” providing information about the war “so that citizens can meet through his testimony the events that unfortunately transform the history of Europe, “as emphasized by the board of directors, made up of the main Spanish publishers. creation of collective consciousness. Without information, there is no freedom,” affirmed the general director of the AMI, Irene Lanzaco.

Source: La Verdad

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