Villages on banks of Inhulets River count losses, damages from flooding

When residents of communities return to their homes, they find only destruction, dirt, stench, and a miserable semblance of their homes.

This is stated in a report by Donbas Frontliner (DF) specially for Espreso.TV.

Photo: Andriy Dubchak  - Delivery of water and food from Fedorivka to the village of Inhulets by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization humanitarian mission.  

The DF team traveled along the Dnipro River from Zaporizhzhia to Kherson to see and tell about the disaster Ukrainians are facing after the Russian terrorist attack: Zaporizhzhia is shrinking, Dnipro is dying, the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions are drowning first in water and then in garbage.

Photo: Andriy Dubchak - A family dries clothes in the yard of a flooded house in the village of Afanasivka.

The water reached the towns and villages located on the winding banks of the Inhulets River on the second or third day, but it caused no less trouble.

From village to village, from household to household, from garden to garden, reporters saw the same horrific picture. The unbearable stench of mud and rot. Cracked or destroyed walls. A ceiling that has fallen into the room or is about to collapse. A twisted floor and eroded clay underfoot. A greasy black coating on plants and things. The former life of the owners thrown out into the yard - soaked furniture, clothes, children's toys, personal belongings and photographs.

Photo by Andriy Dubchak -  A flooded house in the village of Fedorivka.

There are communities that are still practically cut off from the 'big land' because the water has demolished the bridges that connected them to the rest of the world, such as Afanasivka, which was shaped like an island before the flood, and Inhulets near Fedorivka, which takes three hours to reach by a detour road. The problem of the residents of these villages is solved either by an additional bridge on short notice or, for example, by the boatman Sasha, who helps people quickly get from one side of the river to the other.

The Inhulets River flooded near the village of Fedorivka. Photo: Andriy Dubchak

On the day we met, Sasha was busy. In his old and simple boat, he made several trips from the shore of Fedorivka across the Inhulets River to the village of the same name to deliver boxes of humanitarian aid from the International Solidarity Fund - food and basic necessities that the people in the village were desperately waiting for.

Sasha near the bags of food he carries on his boat. Photo: Andriy Dubchak

Sasha is also constantly engaged in transportation: he takes people who want to evacuate or have urgent business out of Inhulets and vice versa, and brings them home from Fedorivka, as he did with an elderly woman who was returning to Inhulets after a dialysis procedure. Sasha never turns anyone away and takes on all the work. His house is right next to the river, so he is always there and ready to work. He knows the local water routes, shoals, and people's needs.

Journalist Alyona Savchuk on Sasha's boat. Photo: Andriy Dubchak

When we say goodbye, he modestly asks me to help him find another boat. He says that according to the military, this one is subject to confiscation, but he loves his job and wants to continue helping his neighbors, and they will not be able to cope without him.

The text was written by Alyona Savchuk.

The material was created as part of the partnership between Espreso and Donbas Frontliner.

Donbas Frontliner is an independent reporting media outlet that covers the war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. It focuses on events on the frontline, recently liberated territories, and in the rear; documenting evidence and eyewitness accounts of Russia's war crimes. In 2022, the team won the Free Media Award 2022; the founder of the media outlet, Andriy Dubchak, was awarded the Georgiy Gongadze Prize in 2023. Donbas Frontliner social media.